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ROBERT BROWNING 




AWElscmSeCo.Bo 



fi^Mr ^r^ 




•M 



LIFE AND LETTERS 



OF 



ROBERT BROWNING 



BY 



MKS. SUTHEELAND OKR 




or* ; » » ' 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



i 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & CJo* 



^3 ^C> 3 



PREFACE. 



Such letters of Mr. Browning's as ap- 
pear, whole or in part, in the present volume 
have been in most cases given to me by the 
persons to whom they were addressed, or 
copied by Miss Browning from the originals 
under her care ; but I owe to the daughter 
of the Rev. W. J. Fox — Mrs. Bridell- 
Fox — those written to her father and to 
Miss Flower, the two interesting extracts 
from her father's correspondence with herself, 
and Mr. Browning's note to Mr. Robert- 
son. 

For my general material I have been 
largely indebted to Miss Browning. Her 
memory was the only existing record of her 



vi PREFACE. 

brother's boyhood and youth. It has been 
to me an unfailing as well as always accessi- 
ble authority for that subsequent period of 
his life which I could only know in discon- 
nected facts or his own fragmentary reminis- 
cences. It is less true, indeed, to say that 
she has greatly helped me in writing this 
short biography than that without her help 
it could never have been undertaken. 

I thank my friends Mrs. R. Courtenay 
Bell and Miss Hickey for their invaluable 
assistance in preparing the book for and 
carrying it through the press ; and I acknow- 
ledge with real gratitude the advantages de- 
rived by it from Mr. Dykes Campbell's 
large literary experience in his very careful 

final revision of the proofs. 

A. ORR 

April 22, 1891. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Origin of the Browning Family. — Robert Browning's 
Grandfather. — His Position and Character. — His 
first and second Marriage. — Unkindness towards his 
eldest Son, Robert Browning's Father. — Alleged In- 
fusion of West Indian Blood through Robert Brown- 
ing's Grandmother. — Existing Evidence against it. 
— The Grandmother's Portrait 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Robert Browning's Father. • — His Position in Li^e. — 
Comparison between him and his Son. — Tenderness 
towards his Son. — Outline of hiS Habits and Char- 
acter. — His Death. — Significant' Newspaper Para- 
graph. — Letter of Mr. Locker-Lampson. — Robert 
Browning's Mother. — Her Character and Antece- 
dents. — Their Influence upon her Son. — Nervous 
Delicacy imparted to both her Children. — Its special 
Evidences in her Son 13 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

1812-1826. 

Birth of Robert Browning. — His Childhood and School- 
days. — Restless Temperament. — Brilliant Mental 
Endowments. — Incidental Peculiarities. — Strong 
Religious Feeling. — Passionate Attachment to his 
Mother; Grief at first Separation. — Fondness for 
Animals. — Experiences of School Life. — Extensive 
Reading. — Early Attempts in Verse. — Letter from 
his Father concerning them. — Spurious Poems in Cir- 
culation. — " Incondita." — Mr. Fox. — Miss Flower 32 

CHAPTER lY. 

1826-1833. 

First Impressions of Keats and Shelley. — Prolonged In- 
fluence of Shelley. — Details of Home Education. — 
Its Effects. — Youthful Restlessness. — Counteract- 
ing Love of Home. — Early Friendships ; Alfred 
Domett, Joseph Arnould, the Silverthornes. — Choice 
of Poetry as a Profession. — Alternative Suggestions; 
mistaken Rumors concerning them. — Interest in Art. 
— Love of good Theatrical Performances. — Talent 
for Acting. — Final Preparation for Literary Life . 55 

CHAPTER V. 

1833-1835. 

*' Pauline." — Letters to Mr. Fox. — Publication of the 
Poem ; chief Biographical and Literary Characteris- 



CONTENTS. IX 

tics. — Mr. Fox's Review in the " Monthly Reposi- 
tory ; " other Notices. — Russian Journey. — De- 
sired diplomatic Appointment. — Minor Poems ; first 
Sonnet ; their Mode of Appearance. — " The Tri- 
fler." — M. de Ripert-Monclar. — " Paracelsus." — 
Letters to Mr. Fox concerning it ; its Publication. — 
Incidental Origin of " Paracelsus ; " its inspiring 
Motive ; its Relation to " Pauline." — Mr. Fox's Re- 
view of it in the " Monthly Repository." — Article in 
the " Examiner " by John Forster 76 

CHAPTER VI. 

1835-1838. 

Removal to Hatcham ; some Particulars. — Renewed 
Intercourse with the second Family of Robert 
Browning's Grandfather. — Reuben Browning. — 
William Shergold Browning. — Visitors at Hatcham. 

— Thomas Carlyle. — Social Life. — New Friends 
and Acquaintance. — Introduction to Macready. — 
New Year's Eve at Elm Place. — Introduction to 
John Forster. — Miss Fanny Ha worth. — Miss Mar- 
tineau. — Serjeant Talfourd. — The " Ion " Supper. 

— " Strafford." — Relations with Macready. — Per- 
formance of " Strafford." — Letters concerning it 
from Mr. Browning and Miss Flower. — Personal 
Glimpses of Robert Browning. — Rival Forms of 
Dramatic Inspiration. — Relation of " Strafford " to 
" Sordello." — Mr. Robertson and the " Westminster 
Review" o Ill 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

1838-1841. 

First Italian Journey. — Letters to Miss Haworth. — 
Mr. John Kenyon. — " Sordello." — Letter to Miss 
Flower. — " Pippa Passes." — " Bells and Pome- 
granates " 137 

CHAPTER VIII. 

1841-1844. 

'*A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." — Letters to Mr. Frank 
Hill ; Lady Martin. — Charles Dickens. — Other 
Dramas and Minor Poems. — Letters to Miss Lee ; 
Miss Haworth ; Miss Flower. — Second Italian 
Journey ; Naples. — E. J. Trelawney. — Stendhal . 168 

CHAPTER IX. 

1844-1849. 

[ntroduction to Miss Barrett. — Engagement. — Mo- 
tives for Secrecy. — Marriage. — Journey to Italy. 
— Extract of Letter from Mr. Fox. — Mrs. Brown- 
ing's Letters ^o Miss Mitf ord. — Life at Pisa. — Val- 
lombrosa. — Florence ; Mr. Powers ; Miss Boyle. — 
Proposed British Mission to the Vatican. — Father 
Prout. — Palazzo Guidi. — Fano ; Ancona. — "A 
Blot in the 'Scutcheon " at Sadler's Wells . . . .201 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER X. 

1849-1852. 

Death of Mr. Browning's Mother. — Birth of his Son. 

— Mrs. Browning's Letters continued. — Baths of 
Lucca. — Florence again. — Venice. — Margaret Ful- 
ler Ossoli. — Visit to England. — Winter in Paris. 

— Carlyle. — George Sand. — Alfred de Musset . . 233 

CHAPTER XL 

1852-1855. 

M. Joseph Milsand. — His close Friendship with Mr. 
Browning ; Mrs. Browning's Impression of him. — 
New Edition of Mr. Browning's Poems. — " Christ- 
mas Eve and Easter Day." — " Essay " on Shelley. 

— Summer in London. — Dante Gabriel Rossetti. — 
Florence ; secluded Life. — Letters from Mr. and 
Mrs. Browning. — " Colombe's Birthday." — Baths 
of Lucca. — Mrs. Browning's Letters. — Winter in 
Rome. — Mr. and Mrs. Story. — Mrs. Sartoris. — 
Mrs. Fanny Kemble. — Summer in London, — Ten- 
nyson. — Ruskin 260 

CHAPTER XIL 

1855-1858. 

"Men and Women." — "Karshook." — "Two in the 
Campagna." — Winter in Paris ; Lady Elgin. — 
** Aurora Leigh." — Death of Mr. Kenyon and Mr. 



xu CONTENTS. 

Barrett. — Penini. — Mrs. Browning's Letters to 
Miss Browning. — The Florentine Carnival. — Baths 
of Lucca. — Spiritualism. — Mr. Kirkup; Count Gin- 
nasi. — Letter from Mr. Browning to Mr. Fox. — 
Havre o . . . 295 

CHAPTER Xin. 

1858-1861. 

Mrs. Browning's Illness. — Siena. — Letter from Mr. 
Browning to Mr. Leighton. — Mrs. Browning's Let- 
ters continued. — Walter Savage Landor. — Winter 
in Rome. — Mr. Val Prinsep. — Friends in Rome : 
Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright. — Multiplying Social Re- 
lations. — Massimo d' Azeglio. — Siena again. — Ill- 
ness and Death of Mrs. Browning's Sister. — Mr. 
Browning's Occupations. — Madame du Quaire. — 
Mrs. Browning's last Illness and Death 325 

CHAPTER XIV. 

1861-1863. 

Miss Blagden. — Letters from Mr. Browning to Miss 
Ha worth and Mr. Leighton. — His Feeling in regard 
to Funeral Ceremonies. — Establishment in London. 
— Plan of Life. — Letter to Madame du Quaire. — 
Miss Arabel Barrett. — Biarritz. — Letters to Miss 
Blagden. — Conception of " The Ring and the 
Book." — Biographical Indiscretion. — New Edition 
of his Works. — Mr. and Mrs. Procter 357 



CONTENTS. xiii 

CHAPTER XV. 

1863-1869. 

Pornic. — "James Lee's Wife." — Meeting at Mr. F. 
Palgrave's. — Letters to Miss Blagden. — His own 
Estimate of his Work. — His Father's Illness and 
Death ; Miss Browning. — Le Croisic. — Academic 
Honors ; Letter to the Master of Balliol. — Death 
of Miss Barrett. — Audierne. — Uniform Edition of 
his Works. — His rising Fame. — " Dramatis Per- 
sonae." — " The Ring and the Book ;" Character of 
Pompilia 385 

CHAPTER XVI. 

1869-1873. 

Lord Dufferin ; " Helen's Tower." — Scotland ; Visit to 
Lady Ashburton. — Letters to Miss Blagden. — St.- 
Aubin ; The Franco-Prussian War. -^ " HervdRiel." 

— Letter to Mr. G. M. Smith. — " Balairetion's 
Adventure ; " *' Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau." — 
"Fifine at the Fair." — Mistaken Theories of Mr. 
Browning's Work. — St. - Aubin ; " Red Cotton 
Nightcap Country " 415 

CHAPTER XVII. 

1873-1878. 

London Life. — Love of Music. — Miss Egerton-Smith. 

— Periodical Nervous Exhaustion. — Mers : " Aris- 



xiv CONTENTS. 

tophanes* Apology." — " Agamemnon." — " The 
Inn Album." — " Pacchiarotto and other Poems." 

— Visits to Oxford and Cambridge. — Letters to 
Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. — St. Andrews ; Letter from Pro- 
fessor Knight. — In the Savoyard Mountains. — 
Death of Miss Egerton-Smith. — " La Saisiaz ; " 
" The Two Poets of Croisic." — Selections from his 
Works 437 

CHAPTER XVIIL 

1878-1884. 

He revisits Italy ; Asolo ; Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. 

— Venice. — Favorite Alpine Retreats. — Mrs. 
Arthur Bronson. — Life in Venice. — A tragedy al 
Saint-Pierre. — Mr. Cholmondeley. — Mr. Brown- 
ing's Patriotic Feeling ; Extract from Letter to Mrs. 
Charles Skirrow. — " Dramatic Idyls." — " Jocose- 
ria."—"Ferishtah's Fancies" 467 

CHAPTER XIX. 

1881-1887. 

The Browning Society ; Mr. Furnivall ; Miss E. H. 
Hickey. — His Attitude towards the Society ; Let- 
ter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. —Mr. Thaxter; Mrs. Celia 
Thaxter. — Letter to Miss Hickey ; « Strafford." 

— Shakspere and Wordsworth Societies. — Letters 
to Professor Knight. — Appreciation in Italy ; Pro- 
fessor Nencioni. — The Goldoni Sonnet. — Mr. Bar- 
rett Browning ; Palazzo Manzoni. — Letters to Mrs. 



CONTENTS. XV 

Charles Skirrow. — Mrs. Bloomfield Moore. — Llan- 
gollen ; Sir Theodore and Lady Martin. — Loss of 
old Friends. — Foreign Correspondent of the Royal 
Academy. — " PaYleyings with certain People of 
Importance in their Day " 498 

CHAPTER XX. 

Constancy to Habit. — Optimism. — Belief in Provi- 
dence. — Political Opinions. — His Friendships. — 
Reverence for Genius. — Attitude towards his Pub- 
lic. — Attitude towards his Work. — Habits of Work. 

— His Reading. — Conversational Powers, — Im- 
pulsiveness and Reserve. — Nervous Peculiarities. 

— His Benevolence. — His Attitude towards Wo- 
men 534 

CHAPTER XXI. 

1887-1889. 

Marriage of Mr. Barrett Browning. — Removal to De 
Vere Gardens. — Symptoms of failing Strength. — 
New Poems ; New Edition of his Works. — Letters 
to Mr. George Bainton, Mr. Smith, and Lady Mar- 
tin. — Primiero and Venice. — Letters to Miss Keep. 

— The last Year in London. — Asolo. — Letters to 
Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, Mrs. Skirrow, and Mr. G. M. 
Smith 677 



xvi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

1889. 

Proposed Purchase of Land at Asolo. — Venice. — Let- 
ter to Mr. G. Moulton-Barrett. — Lines in the 
« Athenseum." — Letter to Miss Keep. — Illness. — 
Death. — Funeral Ceremonial at Venice. — Publica- 
tion of " Asolando." — Interment in Poets' Corner . 606 



Conclusion 



Index e c » . . • 635 



LIFE A^D LETTERS 

OF 

ROBERT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER I. 

Origin of the Browning Family. — Robert Browning's Grand- 
father. — His Position and Character. — His first and sec- 
ond Marriage. — Unkindness towards his eldest Son, Rob- 
ert Browning's Father. — Alleged Infusion of West Indian 
Blood through Robert Browning's Grandmother. — Exist- 
ing Evidence against it. — The Grandmother's Portrait. 

A BELIEF was current in Mr. Browning's 
lifetime that he had Jewish blood in his veins. 
It received outward support from certain acci- 
dents of his life, from his known interest in 
the Hebrew language and literature, from his 
friendship for various members of the Jewish 
community in London. It might well have 
yielded to the fact of his never claiming the 
kinship, which could not have existed without 



2 ROBERT BROWNING. 

his knowledge, and which, if he had known it, 
he would, by reason of these very sympathies, 
have been the last person to disavow. The 
results of more recent and more systematic 
inquiry have shown the beHef to be un- 
founded. 

Our poet sprang, on the father's side, from 
an obscure or, as family tradition asserts, a de- 
cayed branch, of an Anglo-Saxon stock set- 
tled, at an early period of our history, in the 
south, and probably also southwest, of Eng- 
land. A line of Brownings owned the man- 
ors of Melbury-Sampford and Melbury-Os- 
mond, in northwest Dorsetshire ; their last 
representative disappeared — or was believed 
to do so — in the time of Henry VII., their 
manors passing into the hands of the Earls of 
Ilchester, who still hold them.^ The name oc- 
curs after 1542 in different parts of the coun- 
try : in two cases with the affix of " esquire," 
in two also, though not in both coincidently, 

^ I am indebted for these facts, as well as for some others 
referring to, or supplied by, Mr. Browning's uncles, to some 
notes made for the Browning Society by Dr. Furnivall. 



ANGLO-SAXON DESCENT. 3 

within twenty miles of Pentridge, where the 
first distinct traces o£ the poet's family appear. 
Its cradle, as he called it, was Woodyates, in 
the parish of Pentridge, on the Wiltshire con- 
fines of Dorsetshire ; and there his ancestors, 
of the third and fourth generations, held, as 
we understand, a modest but independent 
social position. 

This fragment of history, if we may so call 
it, accords better with our impression of Mr. 
Browning's genius than could any pedigree 
w^hich more palpably connected him with the 
" knightly " and " squirely " families whose 
name he bore. It supplies the strong roots of 
English national hfe to which we instinctively 
refer it. Both the vivid originality of that 
genius and its healthy assimilative power 
stamp it as, in some sense, the product of vir- 
gin soil ; and although the varied elements 
which entered into its growth were racial as 
well as cultural, and inherited as well as ab- 
sorbed, the evidence of its strong natural or 
physical basis remains undisturbed. 

Mr. Browning, for his own part, maintained 



4 ROBERT BROWNING. 

a neutral attitude in the matter. He neither 
claimed nor disclaimed the more remote gene- 
alogical past which had presented itseK as a 
certainty to some older members of his family. 
He preserved the old framed coat -of -arms 
handed down to him from his grandfather ; 
and used, without misgiving as to his right to 
do so, a signet-ring engraved from it, the gift 
of a favorite uncle, in years gone by. But, so 
long as he was young, he had no reason to 
think about his ancestors ; and, when he was 
old, he had no reason to care about them ; he 
knew himself to be, in every possible case, the 
most important fact in his family history. 

Koi ne suls, ni Prince aussi, 
Suis le seigneur de Coucy, 

he wrote, a few years back, to a friend who 
had incidentally questioned him about it. 

Our immediate knowledge of the family be- 
gins with Mr. Browning's grandfather, also a 
Robert Browning, who obtained through Lord 
Shaftesbury's influence a clerkship in the Bank 
of England, and entered on it when barely 
twenty, in 1769. He served fifty years, and 



ANGLO-SAXON DESCENT. 5 

rose to the position of Principal of the Bank 
Stock Office, then an important one, and 
which brought him into contact with the lead- 
ing financiers of the day. He became also a 
lieutenant in the Honorable Artillery Com- 
pany, and took part in the defense of the 
Bank in the Gordon Kiots of 1780. He was 
an able, energetic, and worldly man : an Eng- 
lishman, very much of the provincial type; 
his literary tastes being limited to the Bible 
and " Tom Jones," both of which he is said 
to have read through once a year. He pos- 
sessed a handsome person and, probably, a 
vigorous constitution, since he lived to the 
age of eighty-four, though frequently tor- 
mented by gout; a circumstance which may 
help to account for his not having seen much 
of his grandchildren, the poet and his sister ; 
we are indeed told that he particularly dreaded 
the lively boy's vicinity to his afflicted foot. 
He married, in 1778, Margaret, daughter of 
a Mr. Tittle by his marriage with Miss Sey- 
mour ; and who was born in the West Indies 
and had inherited property there. They had 



6 ROBERT BROWNING. 

three children : Eobert, the poet's father ; a 
daughter, who Kved an uneventful hfe and 
plays no part in the family history ; and an- 
other son who died an infant. The Creole 
mother died also when her eldest boy was only 
seven years old, and passed out of his memory 
in all but an indistinct impression of having 
seen her lying in her coffin. Five years later 
the widower married a Miss Smith, who gave 
him a large family. 

This second marriage of Mr. Browning's 
was a critical event in the life of his eldest 
son ; it gave him, to all appearance, two step- 
parents instead of one. There could have 
been httle sympathy between his father and 
himself, for no two persons were ever more 
unlike, but there was yet another cause for 
the systematic unkindness under which the 
lad grew up. Mr. Browning fell, as a hard 
man easily does, greatly under the influence 
of his second wife, and this influence was 
made by her to subserve the interests of a 
more than natural jealousy of her predeces- 
sor. An early instance of this was her ban- 



HIS GRANDFATHER AND FATHER. 7 

ishing the dead lady's portrait to a garret, on 
the plea that her husband did not need two 
wives. The son could be no burden upon 
her because he had a little income, derived 
from his mother's brother ; but this, proba- 
bly, only heightened her ill-will towards him. 
When he was old enough to go to a univer- 
sity, and very desirous of going — when, 
moreover, he offered to do so at his own cost 
— she induced his father to forbid it, because, 
she urged, they could not afford to send their 
other sons to college. An earlier ambition of 
his had been to become an artist ; but when 
he showed his first completed picture to his 
father, the latter turned away and refused to 
look at it. He gave himself the finishing 
stroke in the parental eyes, by throwing up a 
lucrative employment which he had held for a 
short time on his mother's West Indian prop- 
erty, in disgust at the system of slave labor 
which was still in force there ; and he paid 
for this unpractical conduct as soon as he was 
of age, by the compulsory reimbursement of 
all the expenses which his father, up to that 



8 ROBERT BROWNING. 

date, had incurred for him ; and by the loss 
of his mother's fortune, which, at the time 
of her marriage, had not been settled upon 
her. It was probably in despair of doing 
anything better, that, soon after this, in his 
twenty-second year, he also became a clerk 
in the Bank of England. He married and 
settled in Camberwell, in 1811 ; his son and 
daughter were born, respectively, in 1812 and 
1814. He became a widower in 1849 ; and 
when, four years later, he had completed his 
term of service at the Bank, he went with his 
daughter to Paris, where they resided until 
his death in 1866. 

Dr. Furnivall has originated a theory, and 
maintains it as a conviction, that Mr. Brown- 
ing's grandmother was more than a Creole in 
the strict sense of the term, that of a person 
born of white parents in the West Indies, and 
that an unmistakable dash of dark blood 
passed from her to her son and grandson. 
Such an occurrence was, on the face of it, 
not impossible, and would be absolutely unim- 
portant to my mind, and, I think I may add, 



IMPUTATION OF MIXED BLOOD. 9 

to that of Mr. Browning's sister and son. 
I The poet and his father were what we know 
them, and if negro blood had any part in 
their composition, it was no worse for them^ 
and so much the better for the negro. \ But 
many persons among us are very averse to the 
idea of such a cross ; I believe its assertion, in 
the present case, to be entirely mistaken ; I 
prefer, therefore, touching on the facts alleged 
in favor of it, to passing them over in a silence 
which might be taken to mean indifference, 
but might also be interpreted into assent. 

We are told that Mr. Browning was so dark 
in early life, that a nephew who saw him in 
Paris, in 1837, mistook him for an Italian. 
He neither had nor could have had a nephew ; 
and he was not out of England at the time 
specified. /It is said that when Mr. Browning 
senior was residing on his mother's sugar 
plantation at St. Kitt's, his appearance was 
held to justify his being placed in church 
among the colored members of the congrega-/ 
tion. We are assured in the strongest terms 
that the story has no foundation, and this 



10 ROBERT BROWNING. 

by a gentleman whose authority in all matters 
concerning the Browning family Dr. Furnivall 
has otherwise accepted as conclusive. If the 
anecdote were true it would be a singular 
circumstance that Mr. Browning senior was 
always fond of drawing negro heads, and thus 
obviously disclaimed any unpleasant associa- 
tion with them. 

I do not know the exact physical indica- 
tions by which a dark strain is perceived ; but 
if they are to be sought in the coloring of 
eyes, hair, and skin, they have been conspicu- 
ously absent in the two persons who in the 
present case are supposed to have borne them. 
The poet's father had light blue eyes and, 
I am assured by those who knew him best, 
a clear, ruddy complexion. His appearance 
induced strangers passing him in the Paris 
streets to remark, " C'est un Anglais ! " The 
absolute whiteness of Miss Browning's skin 
was modified in her brother by a sallow tinge 
sufficiently explained by frequent disturbance 
of the liver ; but it never affected the clear- 
ness of his large blue-gray eyes ; and his hair, 



EVIDENCE AGAINST IT. 11 

which grew dark as he approached manhood, 
though it never became black, is spoken of, 
by every one who remembers him in childhood 
and youth, as golden. It is no less worthy o£ 
note that the daughter of his early friend 
Mr. Fox, who grew up in the little social cir- 
cle to which he belonged, never even heard of 
the dark cross now imputed to him ; and a 
lady who made his acquaintance during his 
twenty-fourth year wrote a sonnet upon him, 
beginning with these words : — 

Thy brow is calm, young Poet — pale and clear 
As a moonlighted statue. 

The sug-o^estion of Italian characteristics in 
the poet's face may serve, however, to intro- 
duce a curious fact, which can have no bear- 
ing on the main lines of his descent, but 
holds collateral possibilities concerning it. His 
mother's name Wiedemann or Wiedeman ap- 
pears in a merely contracted form as that of 
one of the oldest families naturalized in Yen- 
ice. It became united by marriage with the 
Rezzonico ; and, by a strange coincidence, the 
last of these who occupied the palace now 
owned by Mr. Barrett Browning was a Wid- 



12 ROBERT BROWNING. 

man-Rezzonico. The present Contessa Wid- 
man has lately restored her own palace, which 
was fallinof into ruin. 

That portrait of the first Mrs. Brownings 
which gave so much umbrage to her hus= 
band's second wife, has hung for many years 
in her grandson's dining-room, and is well 
known to all his friends. It represents a 
stately woman with an unmistakably fair skin ; 
and if the face or hair betrays any indication 
of possible dark blood, it is imperceptible to 
the general observer, and must be of too sHght 
and f uofitive a nature to enter into the discus- 
sion. A long curl touches one shoulder. 
One hand rests upon a copy of Thomson's 
" Seasons," which was held to be the proper 
study and recreation of cultivated women in 
those days. The picture was painted by 
Wright of Derby. 

A brother of this lady was an adventurous 
traveler, and was said to have penetrated 
farther into the interior of Africa than any 
other European of his time. His violent 
death will be found recorded in a singular 
experience of the poet's middle life. 



CHAPTER II. 

Robert Browning's Father. — His Position in Life. — Com- 
parison between him and his Son. — Tenderness towards 
his Son. — Outline of his Habits and Character. — His 
Death. — Significant newspaper Paragraph. — Letter of 
Mr. Locker-Lampson. — Robert Browning's Mother. — 
Her Character and Antecedents. — Their Influence upon 
her Son. — Nervous Delicacy imparted to both her Chil- 
dren. — Its special Evidences in her Son. 

It was almost a matter of course that Rob- 
ert Brownino-'s father should be disinclined 
for bank work. We are told, and can easily 
imagine, that he was not so good an official 
as the grandfather ; we know that he did not 
rise so high, nor draw so large a salary. But 
he made the best of his position for his fam- 
ily's sake, and it was at that time both more 
important and more lucrative than such ap- 
pointments have since become. Its emolu- 
ments could be increased by many honorable 
means not covered by the regular salary. The 
working-day was short, and every additional 



14 ROBERT BROWNING. 

hour's service well paid. To be enrolled on 
the night-watch was also very remunerative ; 
there were enormous perquisites in pens, pa- 
per, and sealing-wax.^ Mr. Browning availed 
himself of these opportunities of adding to his 
income, and was thus enabled, with the help 
of his private means, to gratify his scholarly 
and artistic tastes, and give his children the 
benefit of a very liberal education — the one 
distinct ideal of success in hfe which such a 
nature as his could form. Constituted as he 
was, he probably suffered very little through 
the paternal unkindness which had forced 
him into an uncongenial career. Its only 
palpable result was to make him a more anx- 
iously indulgent parent when his own time 



came. 



Many circumstances conspired to secure to 
the coming poet a happier childhood and 
youth than his father had had. His path was 

1 I have been told that, far from becoming careless in the 
use of these things from his practically unbounded command 
of them, he developed for them an almost superstitious rev- 
erence. He could never endure to see a scrap of writing- 
paper wasted. 



FATHER AND SON. 15 

to be smoothed not only by natural affection 
and conscientious care, but by literary and 
artistic sympathy. The second Mr. Brown- 
ing differed, in certain respects, as much from 
the third as from the first. There were^ 
nevertheless, strong points in which, if he did 
not resemble, he at least distinctly fore- 
shadowed him ; and the genius of the one 
would lack some possible explanation if we 
did not recognize in great measure its organ- 
ized material in the other. Much, indeed, 
that was genius in the son existed as talent in 
the father. The moral nature of the younger 
man diverged from that of the older, though 
retaining strong points of similarity ; but the 
mental equipments of the two differed far less 
in themselves than in the different uses to 
which temperament and circumstances trained 
them. 

The most salient intellectual characteristic 
of Mr. Browning senior was his passion for 
reading. In his daughter's words, " he read 
in season, and out of season ; " and he not 
only read, but remembered. As a schoolboy, 



16 ROBERT BROWNING. 

he knew by heart the first book of the Iliad, 
and all the odes of Horace ; and it shows how 
deeply the classical part of his training must 
have entered into him, that he was wont, in 
later life, to soothe his little boy to sleep by 
humming to him an ode of Anacreon. It was 
one of his amusements at school to organiz3 
Homeric combats among the boys, in which 
the fighting was carried on in the manner of 
the Greeks and Trojans, and he and his friend 
Kenyon would arm themselves with swords 
and shields, and hack at each other lustily, 
exciting themselves to battle by insulting 
speeches derived from the Homeric text.^ 

Mr. Browning had also an extraordinary 
power of versifying, and taught his son from 
babyhood the words he wished him to re- 
member, by joining them to a grotesque 
rhyme ; the child learned all his Latin declen- 
sions in this way. His love of art had been 

1 This anecdote is partly quoted from Mrs. Andrew Crosse, 
who has introduced it into her article " John Kenyon and his 
Friends," Temple Bar, April, 1890. She herself received it 
from Mr. Dykes Campbell. 



HIS FATHER'S INTELLECTUAL TASTES. 17 

proved by his desire to adopt it as a profes- 
sion ; his talent for it was evidenced by the 
life and power of the sketches, often carica- 
tures, which fell from his pen or pencil as 
easily as written words. Mr. Barrett Brown- 
ing remembers gaining a very early elemen- 
tary knowledge of anatomy from comic illus- 
trated rhymes (now in the possession of their 
old friend, Mrs. Fraser Corkran) through 
which his grandfather impressed upon him 
the names and position of the principal bones 
of the human body. 

Even more remarkable than his delight in 
Teadino^ was the manner in which Mr. Brown- 
ing read. He carried into it all the precise- 
ness of the scholar. It was his habit when he 
bought a book — which was generally an old 
one allowing- of this addition — to have some 
pages of blank paper bound into it. These 
he filled with notes, chronological tables, or 
such other supplementary matter as would en- 
hance the interest, or assist the mastering, of 
its contents ; all written in a clear and firm 
though by no means formal handwriting. 



18 ROBERT BROWNING. 

More than one book thus treated by him has 
passed through my hands, leaving in me, it 
need hardly be said, a stronger impression of 
the owner's intellectual quality than the acqui- 
sition by him of the finest library could have 
conveyed. One of the experiences which dis- 
gusted him with St. Kitt's was the frustration 
by its authorities of an attempt he was mak- 
ing to teach a negro boy to read, and the 
understanding that all such educative action 
was prohibited. 

In his faculties and attainments, as in his 
pleasures and appreciations, he showed the 
simplicity and genuineness of a child. He 
was not only ready to amuse, he could always 
identify himself with children, his love for 
whom never failed him in even his latest 
years. His more than childlike indifference to 
pecuniary advantages had been shown in early 
life. He gave another proof of it after his 
wife's death, when he declined a proposal, 
made to him by the Bank of England, to as- 
sist in founding one of its branch establish- 
ments in Liverpool. He never indeed, person- 



HIS FATHER'S INTELLECTUAL TASTES. 19 

alljj cared for money, except as a means of 
acquiring old, i. e, rare books, for which he 
had, as an acquaintance declared, the scent 
of a hound and the snap of a bulldog. His 
eagerness to possess such treasures was only 
matched by the generosity with wliich he 
parted with them ; and his daughter well re- 
members the feehng of angry suspicion with 
which she and her brother noted the periodi- 
cal arrival of a certain visitor who would be 
closeted with their father for hours, and steal 
away before the supper time, when the family 
would meet, with some precious parcel of 
books or prints under his arm. 

It is almost needless to say that he was in- 
different to creature comforts. Miss Brown- 
ing was convinced that, if on any occasion she 
had said to him, " There will be no dinner to- 
day," he would only have looked up from his 
book to reply, " All right, my dear, it is of no 
consequence." In his bank-clerk days, when 
he sometimes dined in town, he left one res- 
taurant with wliich he was not otherwise dis- 
satisfied, because the waiter always gave him 



20 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the trouble of specifying what he would have 
to eat. A hundred times that trouble would 
not have deterred him from a kindly act. Of 
his goodness of heart, indeed, many distinct 
instances might be given ; but even this 
scanty outline of his life has rendered them 
superfluous. 

Mr. Browning enjoyed splendid physical 
health. His early love of reading had not 
precluded a wholesome enjoyment of athletic 
sports ; and he was, as a boy, the fastest run- 
ner and best base-ball player in his school. 
He died, like his father, at eighty-four (or 
rather, within a few days of eighty-five), but, 
unhke him, he had never been ill ; a French 
friend exclaimed when all was over, " II n'a 
jamais ete vieux." His faculties were so un- 
clouded up to the last moment that he could 
watch himself dying, and speculate on the na- 
ture of the change which was befalling him. 
" What do you think death is, E-obert ? " he 
said to his son ; " is it a fainting, or is it a 
pang ? " A notice of his decease appeared in 
an American newspaper. It was written by 



HIS FATHER'S DEATH. 21 

an unknown hand, and bears a stamp of gen- 
uineness which renders the greater part of it 
worth quoting. 

"He was not only a ruddy, active man, 
with fine hair, that retained its strength and 
brownness to the last, but he had a coura- 
geous spirit and a remarkably intelligent mind. 
He was a man of the finest culture, and was 
often, and never vainly, consulted by his son 
Robert concerning the more recondite facts 
relating to the old characters, whose bones 
that poet Hked so well to disturb. His know- 
ledge of old French, Spanish, and Italian liter- 
ature was wonderful. The old man went 
smiling and peaceful to his long rest, preserv- 
ing his faculties to the last, insomuch that the 
physician, astonished at his continued calm- 
ness and good humor, turned to his daughter, 
and said in a low voice, ' Does this gentleman 
know that he is dying ? ' The daughter said 
in a voice which the father could hear, ' He 
knows it ; ' and the old man said with a quiet 
smile, ' Death is no enemy in my eyes.' His 
last words were spoken to his son Robert^ who 



22 ROBERT BROWNING. 

was fanning him, ' I fear I am wearying you, 
dear.' " 

Four years later one of his English acquaint- 
ances in Paris, Mr. Frederick Locker, now 
Mr. Locker-Lampson, wrote to Robert Brown- 
ing as follows : — 

December 26, 1870. 

My dear Browning, — I have always 
thought that you or Miss Browning, or some 
other capable person, should draw up a sketch 
of your excellent father so that, hereafter, it 
might be known what an interesting man he 
was. 

I used often to meet you in Paris, at Lady 
Elgin's. She had a genuine taste for poetry, 
and she Hked being read to, and I remember 
you gave her a copy of Keats' poems, and you 
used often to read his poetry to her. Lady 
Elgin died in 1860, and I think it was in that 
year that Lady Charlotte and I ^ saw the most 
of Mr. Browning. He was then quite an el- 
derly man, if years could make him so, but he 

^ Mr. Locker was then married to Lady Charlotte Bruce, 
Lady Elgin's daughter. 



LETTER FROM MR. LOCKER. 23 

had so much vivacity of manner, and such 
simplicity and freshness of mind, that it was 
difficult to think him old. 

I remember, he and your sister lived in an 
apartment in the Rue de Grenelle, St. Ger- 
main, in quite a simple fashion, much in the 
way that most people live in Paris, and in the 
way that all sensible people would wish to live 
all oVer the world. 

Your father and I had at least one taste 
and affection in common. He liked hunting 
the old bookstalls on the quais, and he had a 
great love and admiration for Hogarth ; and 
he possessed several of Hogarth's engravings, 
some in rare and early states of the plate ; 
and he would relate with glee the circum- 
stances under which he had picked them up, 
and at so small a price too ! However, he 
had none of the joetit-maitre weakness of the 
ordinary collector, which is so common, and 
which I own to ! — such as an infatuation for 
tall copies, and wide margins. 

I remember your father was fond of draw- 
ing in a rough and ready fashion ; he had 



24 ROBERT BROWNING. 

plenty of talent, I should tliink not very great 
cultivation ; but quite enough to serve his 
purpose, and to amuse his friends. He had 
a thoroughly Hvely and healthy interest in 
your poetry, and he showed me some of your 
boyish attempts at versification. 

Taking your dear father altogether, I quite 
believe him to have been one of those men 
— interestinof men — whom the world never 
hears of. Perhaps he was shy — at any rate 
he was much less known thani he ought to 
have been ; and now, perhaps, he only re- 
mains in the recollection of his family, and of 
one or two superior people (Hke myself !) who 
were capable of appreciating him. My dear 
Browning, I really hope you will draw up a 
slight sketch of your father before it is too 
late. Yours, 

Frederick Locker. 

The judgments thus expressed twenty years 
ago are cordially re-stated in the letter in 
which Mr. Locker-Lampson authorizes me to 
publish them. The desired memoir was never 



HIS FATHER A DISSENTER. 25 

written ; but the few details which I have 
given of the older Mr. Browning's life and 
character may perhaps stand for it. 

With regard to the " strict dissent " with 
which her parents have been taxed, Miss 
Browning writes to me : " My father was born 
and educated in the Church of England, and, 
for many years before his death, lived in her 
communion. He became a Dissenter in mid- 
dle life, and my mother, born and brought up 
in the Kirk of Scotland, became one also ; 
but they could not be called bigoted, since we 
always in the evening attended the preaching 
of the Rev. Henry Melvill ^ (afterwards Canon 
of St. Paul's), whose sermons Robert much 
admired." ^ 

Little need be said about the poet's mother. 
She was spoken of by Carlyle as " the true 
t3rpe of a Scottish gentlewoman." Mr. Ken- 

^ At Camden Chapel, Camberwell. 

2 Mr. Browning was much interested, in later years, in 
hearing Canon, perhaps then already Archdeacon, Farrar 
extol his eloquence and ask whether he had known him. 
Mr. Ruskin also spoke of him with admiration. 



26 ROBERT BROWNING. 

yon declared that such as she had no need to 
go to heaven, because they made it wherever 
they were. But her character was all resumed 
in her son's words, spoken with the tremulous 
emotion which so often accompanied his allu- 
sion to those he had loved and lost : " She 
was a divine woman." She was Scotch on the 
maternal side, and her kindly, gentle, but dis- 
tinctly evangelical Christianity must have been 
derived from that source. Her father, Wil- 
liam Wiedemann, a shipowner, was a Ham- 
burg German settled in Dundee, and has been 
described by Mr. Browning as an accom- 
plished draughtsman and musician. She her- 
self had nothing of the artist about her, 
though we hear of her sometimes playing the 
piano ; in all her goodness and sweetness she 
seems to have been somewhat matter-of-fact. 
But there is abundant indirect evidence of 
Mr. Browning's love of music having come 
to him through her, and we are certainly jus- 
tified in holding the Scottish-German descent 
as accountable, in great measure at least, for 
the metaphysical quality so early apparent in 



.^ 



HIS MOTHER. 27 

the poet's mind, and of which we find no evi- 
dence in that of his father. His strong reli- 
gious instincts must have been derived from 
both parents, though most anxiously fostered 
by his mother. 

There is yet another point on which Mrs. 
Browninof must have influenced the life and 
destinies of her son, that of physical health, 
or, at least, nervous constitution. She was a 
delicate woman, very anaemic during her later 
years, and a martyr to neuralgia, which was 
perhaps a symptom of this condition. The 
acute ailment reproduced itself in her daugh- 
ter in spite of an otherwise vigorous constitu- 
tion. With the brother, the inheritance of 
suffering was not less surely present, if more 
difficult to trace. We have been accustomed 
to speaking of him as a brilliantly healthy 
man ; he was healthy, even strong, in many 
essential respects. Until past the age of sev- 
enty he could take long walks without fatigue, 
and endure an amount of social and pfeneral 
physical strain which would have tried many 
vouno^er men. He carried on until the last a 






28 ROBERT BROWNING. 

large, if not always serious, correspondencGj 
and only within the latest months, perhaps 
weeks of his life, did his letters even suggest 
that physical brain-power was failing him. 
He had, within the Hmits which his death has 
assigned to it, a considerable recuperative 
power. Plis consciousness of health was vivid, 
so long as he was well ; and it was only to- 
wards the end that the faith in his probable 
length of days occasionally deserted him. But 
he died of no acute disease, more than seven 
years younger than his father, having long 
carried with him external marks of age from 
which his father remained exempt. Till to- 
wards the age of forty he suffered from attacks 
of sore-throat, not frequent, but of an angry 
kind. He w^as constantly troubled by imper- 
fect action of the liver, though no doctor pro- 
nounced the evil serious. I have spoken of 
this in reference to his complexion. During 
the last twenty years, if not for longer, he 
rarely spent a winter without a suffocating 
cold and cough ; within the last five, asthmatic 
symptoms established themselves ; and when 



INHERITED NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT. 29 

he sank under what was perhav^s his first real 
attack of bronchitis, it was not because the 
attack was very severe, but because the heart 
was exhausted. The circumstances of his 
death recalled that of his mother ; and we 
might carry the sad analogy still farther in 
his increasing pallor, and the blow and not 
strong pulse which always characterized him. 
This would perhaps be a mistake. It is dif- 
ficult to reconcile any idea of bloodlessness 
with the bounding vitality of his younger 
body and mind. Any symptom of organic 
disease could scarcely, in his case, have been 
overlooked. But so much is certain : he was 
conscious of what he called a nervousness of 
nature which neither father nor grandfather 
could have bequeathed to him. He imputed to 
this, or, in other words, to an undue physical 
sensitiveness to mental causes of irritation, his 
proneness to deranged liver, and the asth- 
matic conditions which he believed, rightly or 
wrongly, to be produced by it. He was per- 
haps mistaken in some of his inferences, but 
he was not mistaken in the fact. He had the 



30 ROBERT BROWNING. 

pleasures as well as the pains of this nervous 
temperament ; its quick response to every con- 
genial stimulus of physical atmosphere, and 
human contact. It heightened the enjoyment, 
perhaps exaggerated the consciousness of his 
physical powers. It also certainly in his later 
years led him to overdraw them. Many per- 
sons have believed that he could not Hve with- 
out society ; a prolonged seclusion from it 
would, for obvious reasons, have been un- 
suited to him. But the excited gayety which 
to the last he carried into every social gather- 
ing was often primarily the result of a moral 
and physical effort which his temperament 
prompted, but his strength could not always 
justify. Nature avenged herself in recurrent 
periods of exhaustion, long before the closing 
stage had set in. 

I shall subsequently have occasion to trace 
this nervous impressibility through various 
aspects and relations of his life ; all I now 
seek to show is that this healthiest of poets 
and most real of men was not compounded of 
elements of pure health, and perhaps never 



INHERITED NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT. 31 

could have been so. It might sound gro- 
tesque to say that only a delicate woman could 
have been the mother of Robert Browning. 
The fact remains that of such a one, and no 
other, he was born ; and we may imagine, 
without being fanciful, that his father's placid 
intellectual powers required for their transmu- 
tation into poetic genius just this infusion of 
a vital element not only charged with other 
racial and individual quahties, but physically 
and morally more nearly allied to pain. Per- 
haps, even for his happiness as a man, we 
could not have wished it otherwise. 



CHAPTER III. 

1812-1826. 

Birth of Robert Browning. — His Childhood and Schooldays. 

— Restless Temperament. — Brilliant Mental Endow- 
ments. — Incidental Peculiarities. ■«— Strong Religious 
Feeling. — Passionate Attachment to his Mother ; Grief at 
first Separation. — Fondness for Animals. — Experiences 
of School Life. — Extensive Reading. — Early Attempts 
in Verse. — Letter from his Father concerning them. — 
Spurious Poems in Circulation. — " Incondita." — Mr. Fox. 

— Miss Flower. 

Egbert Browning was born, as has been 
often repeated, at Camberwell, on May 7, 
1812, soon after a great comet had disap- 
peared from the sky. He was a handsome, 
vigorous, fearless child, and soon developed an 
unresting activity and a fiery temper. He 
clamored for occupation from the moment he 
could speak. His mother could only keep 
him quiet when once he had emerged from 
infancy by telling him stories — doubtless 



CHILDHOOD. 33 

Bible stories — while holding him on her 
knee. His energies were of course destructive 
till they had found their proper outlet ; but 
we do not hear of his ever having destroyed 
anything for the mere sake of doing so. His 
first recorded piece of mischief was putting a 
handsome Brussels lace veil of his mother's 
into the fire ; but the motive, which he was 
just old enough to lisp out, was also his ex- 
cuse : " A pitty baze [pretty blaze], mamma." 
Imagination soon came to his rescue. It has 
often been told how he extemporized verse 
aloud while walking round and round the din- 
ing-room table, supporting himself by his 
hands, when he was still so small that his 
head was scarcely above it. He remembered 
having entertained his mother in the very first 
walk he was considered old enough to take 
with her, by a fantastic account of his posses- 
sions in houses, etc., of which the topograph- 
ical details elicited from her the remark, 
" Why, sir, you are quite a geographer." 
And thouo^h this kind of romancino^ is com- 
mon enough among intelligent children, it 



34 ROBERT BROWNING. 

distinguishes itself in this case by the strong 
impression which the incident had left on his 
own mind . It seems to have been a first real 
flight of dramatic fancy, confusing his identity 
for the time being. 

The power of inventing did not, however, 
interfere with his readiness to learn, and the 
facility with which he acquired whatever 
knowledge came in his way had, on one occa- 
sion, inconvenient results. A lady of reduced 
fortunes kept a small elementary school for 
boys, a stone' s-throw from his home ; and he 
was sent to it as a day boarder at so tender an 
age that his parents, it is supposed, had no 
object in view but to get rid of his turbulent 
activity for an hour or two every morning and 
afternoon. Nevertheless, his proficiency in 
reading and spelling was soon so much ahead 
of that of the biggest boy, that complaints 
broke out; among the mammas, who were sure 
there was not fair play. Mrs. was neg- 
lecting her other pupils for the sake of 
^^ bringing on Master Browning ; " and the 
poor lady found it necessary to discourage 



EARLIER SCHOOLDAYS. 35 

Master Browning's attendance lest she should 
lose the remainder of her flock. This, at 
least, was the story as he himself remembered 
it. According to Miss Browning his instruc- 
tress did not yield without a parting shot. 
She retorted on the discontented parents that, 
if she could give their children "Master 
Browning's intellect," she would have no diffi- 
culty in satisfying them. After this came the 
interlude of home-teaching, in which all his 
elementary knowledge must have been gained. 
As an older child he was placed with two 
Misses Eeady, who prepared boys for entering 
their brother's (the Rev. Thomas Ready's) 
school; and in due time he passed into the 
latter, where he remained up to the age of 
fourteen. 

He seems in those early days to have had 
few playmates beyond his sister, two years 
younger than himself, and whom his irrepres- 
sible spirit must sometimes have frightened or 
repelled. Nor do we hear anything of child^ 
ish loves ; and though an entry appeared in 
his diary one Sunday in about the seventh or 



36 ROBERT BROWNING. 

eighth year of his age, " married two wives 
this morning," it only referred to a vague im- 
aginary appropriation of two girls whom he 
had just seen in church, and whose charm 
probably lay in their being much bigger than 
he. He was, however, capable of a self-con- 
scious shyness in the presence of even a little 
girl ; and his sense of certain proprieties was 
extraordinarily keen. He told a friend that 
on one occasion, when the merest child, he 
had edged his way by the wall from one point 
of his bedroom to another, because he was not 
fully clothed, and his reflection in the glass 
could otherwise have been seen through the 
partly open door.^ 

1 Another anecdote, of a very different kind, belongs to an 
earlier period, and to that category of pure naughtiness 
which could not fail to be sometimes represented in the con- 
duct of so gifted a child. An old lady who visited his 
mother, and was characterized in the family as " Aunt Betsy," 
had irritated him by pronouncing the word " lovers " with 
the contemptuous jerk which the typical old maid is some- 
times apt to impart to it, when once the question had arisen 
why a certain " Lovers' Walk " was so called. He was too 
nearly a baby to imagine what a " lover " was ; he supposed 
the name denoted a trade or occupation. But his human 



LOVE FOR HIS FATHER. 37 

His imaginative emotions were largely ab- 
sorbed by religion. The early Biblical train- 
ing had had its effect, and he was, to use his 
own words, " passionately religious " in those 
nursery years ; but during them and many 
succeeding ones, his mother filled his heart. 
He loved her so much, he has been heard to 
say, that even as a grown man he could not 
sit by her otherwise than with an arm round 
her waist. It is difficult to measure the influ- 
ence which this feeling may have exercised on 
his later life ; it led, even now, to a strange 
and touchino^ little incident which had in it 
tha incipient poet no less than the loving 

sympathy resented Aunt Betsy's manner as an affront ; and 
he determined, after probably repeated provocation, to show 
her something worse than a "lover," whatever this might 
be. So one night he slipped out of bed, exchanged his night- 
gown for what he considered the appropriate undress of a 
devil, completed this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he 
could make, and rushed into the drawing-room, where the 
old lady and his mother were drinking tea. He was snatched 
up and carried away before he had had time to judge of the 
effect of his apparition ; but he did not think, looking back 
upon the circumstances in later life, that Aunt Betsy had de- 
served quite so ill of her fellow-creaiures as he then believed. 



38 ROBERT BROWNING. 

child. His attendance at Miss Ready's school 
only kept him from home from Monday till 
Saturday of every week ; but when called 
upon to confront his first five days of banish- 
ment, he felt sure that he would not survive 
them. A leaden cistern belonging to the 
school had in, or outside it, the raised image 
of a face. He chose the cistern for his place 
of burial, and converted the face into his epi- 
taph by passing his hand over and over it to a 
continuous chant of : " In memory of unhappy 
Browning," — the ceremony being renewed in 
his spare moments, till the acute stage of the 
feeling had passed away. 

The fondness for animals for which through 
life he was noted was conspicuous in his very 
earliest days. His urgent demand for " some- 
thing to do " would constantly include " some- 
thing to be caught " for him : " they were to 
catch him an ef t ; " " they were to catch him 
a frog." He would refuse to take his medi- 
cine unless bribed by the gift of a speckled 
frog from among the strawberries ; and the 
maternal parasol, hovering above the straw- 



FONDNESS FOR ANIMALS. 39 

berry bed during the search for this object of 
his desires, remained a standing pictiu'e in his 
remembrance. But the love of the uncommon 
was already asserting itself; and one of his 
very juvenile projects was a collection of rare 
creatures, the first contribution to which was 
a couple of lady-birds, picked up one winter's 
day on a wall and immediately consigned to a 
box lined with cotton-wool, and labeled, " An- 
imals found surviving in the depths of a severe 
winter." Nor did curiosity in this case weaken 
the power of sympathy. His passion for birds 
and beasts was the counterpart of his father's 
love of children, only displaying itself before 
the age at which child-love naturally appears. 
His mother used to read CroxalFs Fables to his 
little sister and him. The story contained in 
them of a lion who was kicked to death by an 
ass affected him bo painfully that he could no 
longer endure the sight of the book ; and as 
he dared not destroy it, he buried it between 
the stuffing and the woodwork of an old din- 
ing-room chair, w^here it stood for lost, at all 
events for the time being. When first he 



40 ROBERT BROWNING. 

heard the adventures of the parrot who in- 
sisted on leaving his cage, and who enjoyed 
himself for a little while and then died of hun- 
ger and cold, he — and his sister with him — 
cried so bitterly that it was found necessary 
to invent a different ending, according to 
which th*fe parrot was rescued just in time, and 
brought back to his cage to live peacefully in 
it ever after. 

As a boy, he kept owls and monkeys, mag- 
pies and hedgehogs, an eagle, and even a 
couple of large snakes, constantly bringing 
home the more portable creatures in his pock- 
ets, and transferring them to his mother for 
immediate care. I have heard him speak ad- 
miringly of the skillful tenderness with which 
she took into her lap a lacerated cat, washed 
and sewed up its ghastly wound, and nursed 
it back to health. The great intimacy with 
the life and habits of animals which reveals 
itself in his works is readily explained by these 
facts. 

Mr. Ready's establishment was chosen for 
him as the best in the neighborhood ; and 



THE MISSES READY. 41 

both there and under the preparatory training 
of that gentleman's sisters, the young Eobert 
was well and kindly cared for. The Misses 
Ready especially concerned themselves with 
the spiritual welfare of their pupils. The 
periodical hair-brushings were accompanied 
by the singing, and fell naturally into the 
measure, of Watts's hymns ; and Mr. Brown- 
ing has given his friends some very hearty 
laughs by illustrating with voice and gesture 
the ferocious emphasis with which the brush 
would swoop down in the accentuated sylla- 
bles of the following Hues : — 

Lord, 't is a pleasant thing to stand 
In gardens planted by Thy hand. 

• ••••« 

Fools never raise their thoughts so high, 
Like brutes they live, like brutes they die. 

He even compelled his mother to laugh at it, 
though it was sorely against her nature to 
lend herself to any burlesquing of piously 
intended things.^ He had become a bigger 

1 In spite of this ludicrous association Mr. Browning 
always recognized great merit in Watts's hymns, and still 



42 ROBERT BROWNING. 

boy since the episode of the cistern, and had 
probably in some degree outgrown the intense 
piety of his earlier childhood. This little 
incident seems to prove it. On the whole, 
however, his religious instincts did not need 
strengthening, though his sense of humor 
might get the better of them for a moment; 
and of secular instruction he seems to have re- 
ceived as little from the one set of teachers as 
from the other. I do not suppose that the 
mental training at Mr. Ready's was more shal- 
low or more mechanical than that of most other 
schools of his own or, indeed, of a much later 
period ; but the brilliant abilities of Robert 
Browning inspired him with a certain contempt 
for it, as also for the average schoolboy intel- 
ligence to which it was apparently adapted. It 
must be for this reason that, as he himself de- 
clared, he never gained a prize, although these 
rewards were showered in such profusion that 
the only difficulty was to avoid them ; and if 

more in Dr. Watts himself, who had devoted to this com- 
paratively humble work intellectual powers competent to far 
higher things. 



AT AN INTOLERANT AGE. 48 

lie did not make friends at school (for this 
also has been somewhere observed)/ it can 
only be explained in the same way. He was 
at an intolerant age, and if his schoolfellows 
struck him as more backward or more stupid 
than they need be, he is not likely to have 
taken pains to conceal the impression. It is 
difficult, at all events, to think of him as un- 
sociable, and his talents certainly had their 
amusing side. Miss Browning tells me that 
he made his schoolfellows act plays, some of 
which he had written for them ; and he de- 
lighted his friends, not long ago, by mim- 
icking his own solemn appearance on some 
breaking-up or commemorative day, when, 
according to programme, " Master Brown- 

1 It was in no case literally true. William, afterwards 
Sir William, Channel was leaving Mr. Ready when Brown- 
ing went to him ; but a friendly acquaintance began, and was 
afterwards continued, between the two boys ; and a closer 
friendship, formed with a younger brother, Frank, was only 
interrupted by his death. Another school friend or acquaint- 
ance recalled himself as such to the poet's memory some ten 
or twelve years ago. A man who has reached the age at 
which his boyhood becomes of interest to the world may 
even have survived many such relations. 



44 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing " ascended a platform in the presence of 
assembled parents and friends, and, in best 
jacket, white gloves, and carefully curled hair, 
with a circular bow to the company and the 
then prescribed waving of alternate arms^ 
delivered a high-flown rhymed address of his 
own composition. 

And during the busy idleness of his school- 
days, or, at all events, in the holidays in which 
he rested from it, he was learning, as perhaps 
only those do learn whose real education is 
derived from home. His father's house was, 
Miss Browning tells me, literally crammed 
with books ; and, she adds, " it was in this 
way that Robert became very early familiar 
with subjects generally unknown to boys." 
He read omnivorously, though certainly not 
without guidance. One of the books he 
best and earliest loved was " Quarles' Em- 
blemes," which his father possessed in a 
seventeenth century edition, and which con- 
tains one or two very tentative specimens of 
his early handwriting. Its quaint, powerful 
lines and still quainter illustrations combined 



PASSION FOR READING. 45 

the marvelous with what he believed to be 
true ; and he seemed specially identified with 
its world of religious fancies by the fact that 
the soul in it was always depicted as a child. 
On its more general grounds his reading was 
at once largely literary and very historical ; 
and it was in this direction that the pater- 
nal influence was most strongly revealed. 
" Quarles' Emblemes " was only one of the 
large collection of old books which Mr. 
Browning possessed; and the young Robert 
learnt to know each favorite author in the 
dress as well as the language which carried 
with it the life of his period. The first edi- 
tion of " Robinson Crusoe ; " the first edition 
of Milton's works, bought for him by his 
father; a treatise on astrology published 
twenty years after the introduction of print- 
ing ; the original pamphlet " Killing no Mur- 
der" (1559), which Carlyle borrowed for his 
" Life of Cromwell ; " an equally early copy of 
Bernard Mandeville's " Bees ; " very ancient 
Bibles — are some of the instances which 
occur to me. Among more modern publi- 



46 ROBERT BROWNING. 

cationsj " Walpole's Letters " were familiar 
to him in boyhood, as well as the " Letters of 
Junius/' and all the works of Voltaire. 

Ancient poets and poetry also played their 
necessary part in the mental culture superin- 
tended by Robert Browning's father ; we can 
indeed imagine no case in which they would 
not have found their way into the boy's hfe. 
Latin poets and Greek dramatists came to him 
in their due time, though his special dehght 
in the Greek language only developed itself 
later. But his loving, lifelong familiarity 
with the Elizabethan school, and indeed with 
the whole range of English poetry, seems to 
point to a more constant study of our national 
literature. Byron was his chief master in 
those early poetic days. He never ceased to 
honor him as the one poet who combined a 
constructive imagination with the more tech- 
nical qualities of his art; and the result of 
this period of aesthetic training was a volume 
of short poems produced, we are told, when 
he was only twelve, in which the Byronic 
influence was predominant. 



HIS FIRST WORK, '' INCONDITAr 47 

The young author gave his work the title 
of '' Incondita," which conveyed a certain idea 
of deprecation. He was, nevertheless, very 
anxious to see it in print ; and his father and 
mother, poetry-lovers of the old school, also 
found in it sufficient merit to justify its pub- 
lication. No publisher, however, could be 
found; and we can easily believe that he 
soon afterwards destroyed the little manu- 
script, in some mingled reaction of disap' 
pointment and disgust. But his mother, 
meanwhile, had shown it to an acquaintance 
of hers, Miss Flower, who herself admired 
its contents so much as to make a copy of 
them for the inspection of her friend, the 
well-known Unitarian minister, Mr. W. J. 
Fox. The copy was transmitted to Mr. 
Browning after Mr. Fox's death by his 
daughter, Mrs. Bridell-Fox ; and this, if no 
other, was in existence in 1871, when, at his 
urgent request, that lady also returned to 
him a fragment of verse contained in a letter 
from Miss Sarah Flower. Nor was it till 
much later that a friend, who had earnestly 



48 ROBERT BROWNING. 

begged for a sight of it, definitely heard of 
its destruction. The fragment, which doubt- 
less shared the same fate, was, I am told, a 
direct imitation of Coleridge's " Fire, Famine, 
and Slaughter." * 

These poems were not Mr. Browning's first. 
It would be impossible to believe them such 
when we remember that he composed verses 
long before he could write ; and a curious 
proof of the opposite fact has recently ap- 
peared. Two letters of the elder Mr. Brown- 
ing have found their way into the market, 
and have been bought respectively by Mr. 
Dykes Campbell and Sir F. Leighton. I 
give the more important of them. It was 
addressed to Mr. Thomas Powell : — 

Dear Sir, — I hope the inclosed may be 
acceptable as curiosities. They were written 
by Eobert when quite a child. I once had 
nearly a hundred of them. But he has de- 
stroyed all that ever came in his way, having 
a great aversion to the practice of many biog- 
raphers in recording every trifling incident 



LETTER FROM MR. BROWNING, SR. 49 

that falls in their way. He has not the 
slightest suspicion that any of his very juve- 
nile performances are in existence. I have 
several of the originals by me. They are all 
extemporaneous productions, nor has any one 
a single alteration. There was one amongst 
them " On Bonaparte," — remarkably beauti- 
ful, — and had I not seen it in his own hand- 
writing I never would have believed it to 
have been the production of a child. It is 
destroyed. Pardon my troubling you with 
these specimens, and requesting you never to 
mention it, as Robert would be very much 
hurt. I remain, dear sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

R. Browning. 

Bank : March 11, 1843. 

The letter was accompanied by a sheet of 
verses which have been sold and resold, doubt- 
less in perfect good faith, as being those to 
which the writer alludes. But Miss Brown- 
ing has recognized them as her father's own 
impromptu epigrams, well remembered in the 



60 ROBERT BROWNING. 

family, together with the occasion on which 
they were written. The substitution may, 
from the first, have been accidental. 

We cannot think of all these vanished first- 
fruits of Mr. Browning's genius without a 
sense of loss, all the greater perhaps that 
there can have been little in them to prefigure 
its later forms. Their faults seem to have 
lain in the direction of too great splendor of 
language and too little wealth of thought ; 
and Mr. Fox, who had read " Incondita " and 
been struck by its promise, confessed after- 
wards to Mr. Browning that he had feared 
these tendencies as his future snare. But the 
imitative first note of a young poet's voice 
may hold a rapture of inspiration which his 
most original later utterances will never con- 
vey. It is the child Sordello, singing against 
the lark. 

Not even the poet's sister ever saw " Incon- 
dita." It was the only one of his finished 
productions which Miss Browning did not 
read, or even help him to write out. She was 
then too young to be taken into his confi- 



MISS FLOWER. 61 

dence. Its writing, however, had one impor- 
tant result. It procured for the boy-poet a 
preliminary introduction to the valuable liter- 
ary patron and friend Mr. Fox was subse- 
quently to be. It also supplies the first sub- 
stantial record of an acquaintance which made 
a considerable impression on his personal life. 
The Miss Flower, of whom mention has 
been made, was one of two sisters, both suffi- 
ciently noted for their artistic gifts to have 
found a place in the new Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography. The elder, Eliza or Lizzie, 
was a musical composer ; the younger, best 
known as Sarah Flower Adams, a writer of 
sacred verse. Her songs and hymns, includ- 
ing the well-known " Nearer, my God, to 
Thee," were often set to music by her sister.^ 
They sang, I am told, delightfully together, 
and often without accompaniment, their voices 
perfectly harmonizing with each other. Both 

^ She also wrote a dramatic poem in five acts, entitled 
Vivia Perpetua, referred to by Mrs. Jameson in her Sacred 
and Legendary Art, and by Leigh Hunt, when he spoke of 
her in Blue-Stocking Revels, as "Mrs. Adams, rare mistress 
of thought and of tears." 



52 ROBERT BROWNING. 

were, in their different ways, very attractive ; 
both interesting, not only from their talents, 
but from their attachment to each other, 
and the delicacy which shortened their lives. 
They died of consumption, the elder in 1846, 
at the age of forty-three ; the younger a year 
later. They became acquainted with Mrs. 
Browning through a common friend, Miss 
Sturtevant ; and the young Robert conceived 
a warm admiration for Miss Flower's talents, 
and a boyish love for herself. She was nine 
years his senior ; her own affections became 
probably engaged, and, as time advanced, his 
feeling seems to have subsided into one of 
warm and very loyal friendship. We hear, 
indeed, of his falling in love, as he was emer- 
ging from his teens, with a handsome girl 
who was on a visit at his father's house. But 
the fancy died out " for want of root." The 
admiration, even tenderness, for Miss Flower 
had so deep a " root " that he never in latest 
life mentioned her name with indifference 
In a letter to Mr. Dykes Campbell, in 1881, 
he spoke of her as " a very remarkable per- 



SCRAPS OF LETTERS AND VERSE. 53 

son." If, in spite of his denials, any woman 
inspired " Pauline," it can have been no other 
than she. He began writing to her at twelve 
or thirteen, probably on the occasion of her ex- 
pressed sympathy with his first distinct effort 
at authorship ; and what he afterwards called 
" the few utterly insignificant scraps of letters 
and verse " which formed his part of the cor- 
respondence were preserved by her as long as 
she lived. But he recovered and destroyed 
them after his return to England, with all 
the other reminiscences of those early years. 
Some notes, however, are extant, dated re- 
spectively, 1841, 1842, and 1845, and will be 
given in their due place. 

Mr. Fox was a friend of Miss Flower's 
father (Benjamin Flower, known as editor of 
the " Cambridge Intelligencer "), and, at his 
death in 1829, became co-executor to his will,- 
and a kind of guardian to his daughters, then 
both unmarried, and motherless from their 
infancy. Eliza's principal work was a collec- 
tion of hymns and anthems, originally com= 
posed for Mr. Fox's chapel, where she had 



54 ROBERT BROWNING. 

assumed the entire management of the choral 
part of the service. Her abilities were not 
confined to music ; she possessed, I am told, 
an instinctive taste and judgment in literary 
matters, which caused her opinion to be much 
valued by literary men. But Mr. Browning's 
genuine appreciation of her musical genius 
was probably the strongest permanent bond 
between them. We shall hear of this in his 
own words. 



CHAPTER IV. 

1826-1833. 

First Impressions of Keats and Shelley. — Prolonged Influ^ 
ence of Shelley. — Details of Home Education. — Its Ef- 
fects. — Youthful Restlessness. — Counteracting Love of 
Home. — Early Friendships : Alfred Domett, Joseph Ar- 
nould, the Silverthornes. — Choice of Poetry as a Profes- 
sion. — Alternative Suggestions ; mistaken Rumors con- 
cerning them. — Interest in Art. — Love of good Theatrical 
Performances. — Talent for Acting. — Final Preparation 
for Literary Life. 

At the period at which we have arrived, 
which is that of his leaving school and com- 
pleting his fourteenth year, another and a sig- 
nificant influence was dawning on Robert 
Browning's life, — the influence of the poet 
Shelley. Mr. Sharp writes,^ and I could only 
state the facts in similar words : " Passing a 
bookstall one day, he saw, in a box of second- 
hand volumes, a little book advertised as ' Mr. 

1 Life of Browning, pp. 30, 31. 



56 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Shelley's Atheistical Poem : very scarce/ . . . 
From yagiie remarks in reply to his inqiiii'ies, 
and from one or two casual allusions, he 
learned that there really Tvas a poet called 
Shelley ; that he had written several volumes ; 
that he was dead. . . . He beo;o;ed his mother 
to procure him Shelley's works, a request not 
easily complied with, for the excellent reason 
that not one of the local booksellers had even 
heard of the poet's name. Ultimately, how- 
ever, Mrs. Browning learned that what she 
sought was procurable at the Olliers', in Yere 
Street, London." 

Mrs. Browning went to Messrs. Oilier, and 
brouofht back " most of Shelley's writino-s, all 
in their first edition, with the exception of 
' The Cenci.' " She brouo-ht also three vol- 
umes of the still less known John Keats, on 
being assured that one who hked Shelley's 
works would like these also. 

Keats and Shelley must always remain con- 
nected in this epoch of Mr. Browning's poetic 
growth. They indeed came to him as the two 
nightingales which, he told some friends, sang 



INFLUENCE OF SHELLEY. 67 

too^etlier in the May-nio-ht which closed this 

O I/O 

eventful day : one in the laburnum m his 
father's garden, the other in a copper beech 
which stood on adjoining ground, — with the 
difference, indeed, that he must often have 
listened to the feathered singers before, while 
the two new human voices sounded from what 
were to him, as to so many later hearers, un- 
known heights and depths of the imaginative 
world. Then' utterance was, to such a spirit 
as his, the last, as in a certain sense the first, 
word of what poetry can say ; and no one 
who has ever heard him read the " Ode to a 
Nightingale," and repeat in the same subdued 
tones, as if continuing his own thoughts, some 
line from " Epipsychidion," can doul)t that 
they retained a lasting and almost equal place 
in his poet's heart. But the two cannot be 
regarded as equals in their relation to his life, 
and it would be a great mistake to impute to 
either any important influence upon his genius. 
We may catch some fleeting echoes of Keats's 
melody in " Pippa Passes ; " it is ahnost a 
commonplace that some measure of Shel- 



58 ROBERT BROWNING. 

leyan fancy is recognizable in " Pauline." But 
the poetic individuality of Robert Browning 
was stronger than any circumstance through 
which it could be fed. It would have found 
nourishment in desert air. With his first ac- 
cepted work he threw off what was foreign to 
his poetic nature, to be thenceforward his own 
never-to-be-subdued and never-to-be-mistaken 
self. If Shelley became, and long remained 
for him, the greatest poet of his age, — of 
almost any age, — it was not because he held 
him greatest in the poetic art, but because 
in his case, beyond all others, he believed 
its exercise to have been prompted by the 
truest spiritual inspiration. 

It is difficult to trace the process by which 
this conviction formed itself in the boy's 
mind ; still more to account for the strong 
personal tenderness which accompanied it. 
The facts can have been scarcely known 
which were to present Shelley to his imagina- 
tion as a maligned and persecuted man. It 
is hard to judge how far such human qualities 
as we now read into his work could be appar- 



REVERENCE FOR SHELLEY. 59 

ent to one who only approached him through 
it. But the extra-human note in Shelley's 
genius irresistibly suggested to the Browning 
of fourteen, as it still did to the Browning of 
forty, the presence of a lofty sphit, one dwell- 
ing in the communion of higher things. There 
was often a deep sadness in his utterance ; the 
consecration of an early death was upon him. 
And so the worship rooted itself and grew. 
It was to find its lyrical expression in " Paul- 
ine ; " its rational and, from the writer's point 
of view, philosophic justification in the prose 
essay on Shelley, pubhshed eighteen years 
afterwards. 

It may appear inconsistent with the nature 
of this influence that it began by appealing 
to him in a subversive form. The Shelley 
whom Browning first loved was the Shelley of 
" Queen Mab," the Shelley who would have 
remodeled the whole system of religious be- 
lief, as of human duty and rights ; and the 
earliest result of the new development was 
that he became a professing atheist, and, for 
two years, a practicing vegetarian. He re- 



60 ROBERT BROWNING. 

turned to his natural diet when he found his 
eyesight becoming weak. The atheism cured 
itself ; we do not exactly know when or how. 
What we do know is, that it was with him a 
passing state of moral or imaginative rebel= 
lion, and not one of rational doubt. His mind 
was not so constituted that such doubt could 
fasten itself upon it ; nor did he ever in after- 
life speak of this period of negation except as 
an access of boyish folly, with which his ma- 
turer self could have no concern. The return 
to religious belief did not shake his faith in 
his new prophet. It only made him willing 
to admit that he had misread him. 

This Shelley period of Robert Browning's 
life — that which intervened between " In- 
condita " and " Pauline " — remained, never- 
theless, one of rebellion and unrest, to which 
many circumstances may have contributed be- 
sides the influence of the one mind. It had 
been decided that he was to complete, or at 
all events continue, his education at home ; 
and, knowing the elder Mr. Browning as we 
do, we cannot doubt that the best reasons, of 



HOME EDUCATION. 61 

kindness or expediency, led to liis so deciding. 
It was none the less, probably, a mistake, for 
the time being. The conditions of home life 
were the more favorable for the young poet's 
imaginative growth ; but there can rarely have 
been a boy whose moral and mental health 
had more to gain by the combined discipline 
and freedom of a public school. His home 
training was made to include everything which 
in those days went to the production of an ac- 
complished gentleman, and a great deal there- 
fore that was physically good. He learned 
music, singing, dancing, riding, boxing, and 
fencing, and excelled in the more active of 
these pursuits. The study of music was also 
serious, and carried on under two masters. 
Mr. John Relfe, author of a valuable work on 
counterpoint, was his instructor in thorough- 
bass ; Mr. Abel, a pupil of Moscheles, in exe- 
cution. He wrote music for songs which he 
himself sang ; among them Donne's " Go and 
catch a falling star ; " Hood's " I will not have 
the mad Clytie ; " Peacock's " The mountain 
sheep are sweeter ; " and his settings, all of 



62 ROBERT BROWNING. 

which he subsequently destroyed, were, I am 
told, very spirited. His education seems other- 
wise to have been purely literary. For two 
years, from the age of fourteen to that of six- 
teen, he studied with a French tutor, who., 
whether this was intended or not, imparted to 
him very little but a good knowledge of the 
French language and literature. In his eigh- 
teenth year he attended, for a term or two, a 
Greek class at the London University. His 
classical and other reading was probably con- 
tinued. But we hear nothing in the pro- 
gramme of mathematics, or logic — of any, in 
short, of those subjects which train, even 
coerce, the thinking powers, and which were 
doubly requisite for a nature in which the 
creative imagination was predominant over all 
the other mental faculties, great as these other 
faculties were. And, even as poet, he suffered 
from this omission : since the involutions and 
overlappings of thought and phrase, which 
occur in his earlier and ao^-ain in his latest 
works, must have been partly due to his never 
learning to follow the processes of more nor- 



TIME OF GROWTH. 63 

mally constituted minds. It would be a great 
error to suppose that they ever arose from the 
absence of a meaning clearly felt, if not al- 
ways clearly thought out, by himself. He was 
storing his memory and enriching his mind ; 
but precisely in so doing he was nourishing 
the consciousness of a very vivid and urgent 
personaHty ; and, under the restrictions in- 
separable from the life of a home-bred youth, 
it was becoming a burden to him. What out- 
let he found in verse we do not know, because 
nothing survives of what he may then have 
written. It is possible that the fate of his early 
poems, and, still more, the change of ideals, 
retarded the definite impulse towards poetic 
production. It would be a relief to him to 
sketch out and elaborate the plan of his future 
work — his great mental portrait gallery of 
typical men and women ; and he was doing 
so during at least the later years which pre- 
ceded the birth of " Pauline." But even this 
must have been the result of some protracted 
travail with himself ; because it was only the 
inward sense of very varied possibilities of ex- 



64 ROBERT BROWNING. 

istence which could have impelled him towards 
this kind of creation. No character he ever 
produced was merely a figment of the brain. 

It was natural, therefore, that during this 
time of growth he should have been not only 
more restless, but less amiable than at any 
other. The always impatient temper assumed 
a quality of aggressiveness. He behaved as a 
youth will who knows himself to be clever, 
and believes that he is not appreciated, be- 
cause the crude or paradoxical forms which 
his cleverness assumes do not recommend it to 
his elders' minds. He set the judgments of 
those about him at defiance, and gratuitously 
proclaimed himself everything that he was, 
and some things that he was not. All this 
subdued itself as time advanced, and the com- 
ing man in him could throw off the wayward 
child. It was all so natural that it mig^ht well 
be forgotten. But it distressed his mother, 
the one being in the world whom he entirely 
loved ; and deserves remembering in the ten- 
der sorrow with which he himself remembered 
it. He was always ready to say that he had 



LOVE OF HOME. 66 

been worth little in his young days ; indeed, 
his self -depreciation covered the greater part 
of his life. This was, perhaps, one reason of 
the difficulty of inducing him to dwell upon 
his past. " I am better now," he has said 
more than once, when its reminiscences have 
been invoked. 

One tender little bond maintained itself be- 
tween his mother and himself so long as he 
lived under the paternal roof ; it was his rule 
never to go to bed without giving her a good- 
nio[-ht kiss. If he was out so late that he had 
to admit himself with a latchkey, he neverthe- 
less went to her in her room. Nor did he 
submit to this as a necessary restraint; for, 
except on the occasions of his going abroad, 
it is scarcely on record that he ever willingly 
spent a night away from home. It may not 
stand for much, or it may stand to the credit 
of his restlessness, that, when he had been 
placed with some gentleman in Gower Street, 
for the convenience of attending; the Univer- 
sity lectures, or for the sake of preparing for 
them, he broke throuo^h the arrangrement at 



6Q ROBERT BROWNING. 

the end of a week ; but even an agreeable 
visit had no power to detain him beyond a few 
days. 

This home-loving quality was in curious 
contrast to the natural bohemianism of youth- 
ful genius, and the inclination to wildness 
which asserted itself in his boyish days. It 
became the more striking as he entered upon 
the age at which no reasonable amount of 
freedom can have been denied to him. Some- 
thing, perhaps, must be allowed for the pecu- 
niary dependence which forbade his forming 
any expensive habits of amusement ; but he 
also claims the credit of having been unable 
to accept any low-life pleasures in place of 
them. I do not know how the idea can have 
arisen that he willingly sought his experience 
in the society of " gypsies and tramps." I re- 
member nothing in his works which even sug- 
gests such association ; and it is certain that a 
few hours spent at a fair would at all times 
have exhausted his capability of enduring it. 
In the most audacious imaginings of his later 
life, in the most undisciplined acts of his early 



YOUTHFUL RESTLESSNESS. 67 

youth, were always present curious delicacies 
and reserves. There was always latent in him 
the real goodness of heart which would not 
allow him to trifle consciously with other lives. 
Work must also have been his safeguard when 
the habit of it had been acquired, and when 
imagination, once his master, had learned to 
serve him. 

One tangible cause of his youthful restless- 
ness has been implied in the foregoing re- 
marks, but deserves stating in his sister's 
words : " The fact was, poor boy, he had out- 
grown his social surroundings. They were 
absolutely good, but they were narrow ; it 
could not be otherwise ; he chafed under 
them." He was not, however, quite without 
congenial society even before the turning- 
point in his outward existence which was 
reached in the publication of " Pauline ; " and 
one long friendly acquaintance, together with 
one lasting friendship, had their roots in these 
early Camberwell days. The families of Jo° 
seph Arnould and Alfred Domett both lived at 
Camberwell. These two young men were bred 



68 ROBERT BROWNING. 

to the legal profession, and the former, after- 
wards Sir Joseph Arnomd, became a judge in 
Bombay. But the father of Alfred Domett 
had been one of Nelson's captains, and the 
roving sailor spirit was apparent in his son ; 
for he had scarcely been called to the Bar 
when he started for New Zealand on the in- 
stance of a cousin who had preceded him, but 
who was drowned in the course of a day's sur- 
veying before he could arrive. He became a 
member of the New Zealand Parliament, and 
ultimately, for a short time, of its Cabinet ; 
only returning to England after an absence of 
thirty years. This Mr. Domett seems to have 
been a very modest man, besides a devoted 
friend of Robert Browning's, and on occasion 
a warm defender of his works. When he read 
the apostrophe to ^^ Alfred, dear friend," in 
the " Guardian Angel," he had reached the 
last line before it occurred to him that the 
person invoked could be he. I do not think 
that this poem and that directly addressed to 
him under the pseudonym of " Waring " were 
the only ones inspired by the affectionate re- 



EARLY FRIENDSHIPS. 69 

membrance which he had left in their author's 
mind 

Among his boy companions were also the 
thi^e Silverthornes, his neighbors at Camber- 
well, and cousins on the maternal side. They 
appear to have been wild youths, and had cer- 
tainly no part in his intellectual or literary 
life ; but the group is interesting to his biog- 
rapher. The three brothers were all gifted 
musicians ; having also, probably, received this 
endowment from their mother's father. Mr. 
Browning conceived a great affection for the 
eldest, and on the whole most talented of the 
cousins ; and when he had died — young, as 
they all did — he wrote " May and Death " in 
remembrance of him. The name of " Charles " 
stands there for the old, familiar " Jim," so 
often uttered by him in half-pitying, and all- 
affectionate allusion, in his later years. Mrs. 
Silverthorne was the aunt who paid for the 
printing of " Pauline." 

It was at about the time of his short 
attendance at University College that the 
choice of poetry as his future profession was 



70 ROBERT BROWNING. 

formally made. It was a foregone conclusion 
in the young Robert's mind ; and little less in 
that of his father, who took too sympathetic 
an interest in his son's life not to have seen, in 
what direction his desires were tending:. He 
must, it is true, at some time or other, have 
played with the thought of becoming an ar- 
tist ; but the thought can never have repre- 
sented a wish. If he had entertained such a 
one, it would have met not only with no oppo- 
sition on his father's part, but with a very 
ready assent, nor does the question ever seem 
to have been seriously mooted in the family 
councils. It would be strange, perhaps, if it 
had. Mr. Browning became very early familiar 
with the names of the great painters, and also 
learned something about their work ) for the 
Dulwich Gallery was within a pleasant walk of 
his home, and his father constantly took him 
there. He retained through Hfe a deep inter- 
est in art and artists, and became a very fa- 
miHar figure in one or two London studios. 
Some drawings made by him from the nude, 
in Italy, and for which he had prepared him. 



INTEREST IN ART. 71 

self by assiduous copying of casts and study 
of human anatomy, had, I believe, great merit. 
But painting was one of the subjects in which 
he never received instruction, though he mod- 
eled, under the direction of his friend Mrc 
Story ; and a letter of his own will presently 
show that, in his youth at least, he never cred- 
ited himself with exceptional artistic power. 
That he might have become an artist, and 
perhaps a great one, is difficult to doubt, in 
the face of his brilliant general abiHty and 
special gifts. The power to do a thing is, how- 
ever, distinct from the impulse to do it, and 
proved so in the present case. 

More importance may be given to an idea 
of his father's that he should qualify himself 
for the Bar. It would naturally coincide with 
the widening of the social horizon which his 
University College classes supplied ; it was 
possibly suggested by the fact that the closest 
friends he had already made, and others whom 
he was perhaps now making, were barristers. 
But this also remained an idea. He miofht 
have been placed in the Bank of England, 



72 ROBERT BROWNING. 

where the virtual offer of an appointment had 
been made to him through his father ; but the 
elder Browning spontaneously rejected this, 
as unworthy of his son's powers. He had 
never, he said, liked bank work himself, and 
could not, therefore, impose it on him. 

We have still to notice another, and a more 
mistaken view of the possibilities of Mr. 
Browning's life. It has been recently stated, 
doubtless on the authority of some words of 
his own, that the Church was a profession to 
which he once felt himself drawn. But an 
admission of this kind could only refer to that 
period of his childhood when natural impulse, 
combined with his mother's teaching and 
guidance, frequently caused his fancy and his 
feelings to assume a religious form. From the 
time when he was a free agent he ceased to be 
even a regular churchgoer, though rehgion be- 
came more, rather than less, an integral part 
of his inner life ; and his alleged fondness for 
a variety of preachers meant really that he 
only listened to those who, from personal as- 
sociation or conspicuous merit, were interest- 



AN ADMIRER OF GOOD ACTING. 73 

Ing to him. I have mentioned Canon Melvill 
as one of these ; the Kev. Thomas Jones was, 
as will be seen, another. In Venice he con- 
stantly, with his sister, joined the congrega- 
tion of an Italian minister of the httle Vau- 
dois church there. ^ 

It would be far less surprising if we were 
told, on sufficient authority, that he had been 
disturbed by hankerings for the stage. He 
was a passionate admirer of good acting, and 
would walk from London to Richmond and 
back again to see Edmund Kean when he was 
performing there. We know how Macready 
impressed him, though the finer genius of 
Kean became very apparent to his retrospec- 
tive judgment of the two ; and it was impossi- 
ble to see or hear him, as even an old man, in 

^ Mr. Browning's memory recalled a first and last effort 
at preaching, inspired by one of his very earliest visits to a 
place of worship. He extemporized a surplice or gown, 
climbed into an armchair by way of pulpit, and held forth 
so vehemently that his scarcely more than baby sister was 
frightened and began to cry ; whereupon he turned to an 
imaginary presence, and said, with all the sternness which 
the occasion required, " Pew-opener, remove that child." 



74 ROBERT BROWNING. 

some momentary personation of one of Shake- 
speare's characters, above all of Richard III., 
and not feel that a great actor had been lost 
in him. 

So few professions were thought open to 
gentlemen in Robert Browning's eighteenth 
year, that his father's acquiescence in that 
which he had chosen might seem a matter 
scarcely less of necessity than of kindness. 
But we must seek the kindness not only in 
this first, almost inevitable, assent to his son's 
becoming a writer, but in the subsequent un- 
failing readiness to support him in his literary 
career. " Paracelsus," '' Sordello," and the 
whole of " Bells and Pomegranates " were 
published at his father's expense, and, incred- 
ible as it appears, brought no return to him. 
This was vividly present to Mr. Browning's 
mind in what Mrs. Kemble so justly defines 
as those " remembering days " which are the 
natural prelude to the forgetting ones. He 
declared, in the course of these, to a friend, 
that for it alone he owed more to his father 
than to any one else in the world. Words to 



PREPARATIONS FOR LITERATURE. 75 

this effect, spoken in conversation with his 
sister, have since, as it was right they should, 
found their way into print. The more justly 
will the world interpret any incidental admis- 
sion he may ever have made, of intellectual 
disagreement between that father and himself. 
When the die was cast, and young Brown- 
ing was definitely to adopt literature as his 
profession, he qualified himself for it by read- 
ing and digesting the whole of Johnson's 
Dictionary. We cannot be surprised to hear 
this of one who displayed so great a mastery 
of words, and so deep a knowledge of the 
capacities of the English language. 



CHAPTER V. 

1833-1835. 

" Pauline." — Letters to Mr. Fox. — Publication of the 
Poem ; chief Biographical and Literary Characteristics. — 
Mr. Fox's Review in the " Monthly Repository ; " other 
Notices. — Russian Journey. — Desired Diplomatic Ap- 
pointment. — Minor Poems ; first Sonnet ; their Mode of 
Appearance. — "The Trifler." — M. de Ripert-Monclar. 
— '* Paracelsus." — Letters to Mr. Fox concerning it ; its 
Publication. — Incidental Origin of " Paracelsus ; " its in- 
spiring Moti\ e ; its Relation to " Pauline." — Mr. Fox's 
Review of it in the "Monthly Repository." — Article in 
the " Examiner " by John Forster. 

Before Mr. Browning had half completed 
his twenty-first year he had written " Pauline, 
a Fragment of a Confession." His sister was 
in the secret, but this time his parents were 
not. This is why his aunt, hearing that 
" Robert " had " written a poem," volunteered 
the sum requisite for its publication. Even 
this first installment of success did not inspire 



PUBLICATION OF ''PAULINES 11 

much hope in the family mind, and Miss 
Browning made pencil copies of her favorite 
passages for the event, which seemed only too 
possible, of her never seeing the whole poem 
again. It was, however, accepted by Saunders 
and Otley, and appeared anonymously in 1833. 
Meanwhile the young author had bethought 
himself of his early sympathizer, Mr. Fox, 
and he wrote to him as follows (the letter is 
undated) : — 

Dear Sir, — Perhaps by the aid of the 
subjoined initials and a little reflection, you 
may recollect an oddish sort of boy, who had 
the honor of being introduced to you at 
Hackney some years back — at that time a 
sayer of verse and a doer of it, and whose 
doings you had a little previously commended 
after a fashion — (whether in earnest or not, 
God knows) : that individual it is who takes 
the liberty of addressing one whose slight 
commendation then was more thought of 
than all the gun, drum, and trumpet of praise 
would be now, and to submit to you a free 



78 V ROBERT BROWNING. 

and easy sort of thing which he wrote some 
months ago " on one leg " and which comes 
out this week — having either heard or 
dreamed that you contribute to the "West- 
minster." ^ 

Should it be found too insignificant for 
cutting up, I shall no less remain, dear sir, 
Your most obedient servant, 

R. B. 

I have forgotten the main thing — which is 
to beg you not to spoil a loophole I have kept 
for backing out of the thing if necessary, 
" sympathy of dear friends," etc., etc., none 
of whom know anything about it. 

Monday morning ; Kev. Fox. 

The answer was clearly encouraging, and 
Mr. Browning wrote again : — 

Dear Sir, — In consequence of your kind 
permission I send, or will send, a dozen copies 
of " Pauline " and (to mitigate the infliction) 
Shelley's Poem — on account of what you 



LETTERS TO MR. FOX. 79 

mentioned this morning. It will perhaps be 
as well that you let me know their safe arrival 
by a line to R. B., junior, Hanover Cottage, 
Southampton Street, Camberwell. You must 
not think me too encroaching, if I make the 
getting back " Rosalind and Helen " an excuse 
for calling on you some evening — the said 
" R. and H." has, I observe, been well thumbed 
and sedulously marked by an acquaintance of 
mine, but I have not time to rub out his labor 
of love. I am, dear sir. 

Yours very really, 

R. Browning. 

Camberwell, 2 o'clock. 

At the left-hand corner of the first page of 
this note is written : " The parcel — a ' Paul- 
ine ' parcel — is come. I send one as a wit- 
ness." 

On the inner page is written : — 
" Impromptu on hearing a sermon by the 
Rev. T. R. — pronounced ^ heavy ' " — 

" A heavy sermon ! — sure the error 's great, 
For not a word Tom uttered had its weight.''^ 



80 ROBERT BROWNING. 

A third letter, also undated, but post- 
marked March 29, 1833, refers probably to 
the promise or^ announcement of a favorable 
notice. A fourth conveys Mr. Browning's 
thanks for the notice itself : — 

My dear Sir, — I have just received your 
letter, which I am desirous of acknowledging 
before any further mark of your kindness 
reaches me ; — I can only ofPer you my simple 
thanks — but they are of the sort that one 
can give only once or twice in a Hfe : all 
things considered, I think you are almost re- 
paid, if you imagine what I must feel — and 
it will have been worth while to have made 
a fool of myself, only to have obtained a 
" case " which leaves my fine fellow Mande- 
ville at a dead lock. 

As for the book — I hope ere long to bet- 
ter it, and to deserve your goodness. 

In the mean time I shall not forget the 
extent to which I am, dear sir, 

Your most obliged and obedient servant, 

H. B. 

S. & Oc's, Conduit St., Thursday m-g. 



SOURCE OF HIS FIRST PRAISE. 81 

I must intrude on your attention, my dear 
sir, once more than I had intended — but a 
notice like the one I have read will have its 
effect at all hazards. 

I can only say that I am very proud to feel 
as grateful as I do, and not altogether hope- 
less of justifying, by effort at least, your most 
generous "coming forward." Hazlitt wrote 
his essays, as he somewhere tells us, mainly to 
send them to some one in the country who had 
" always prophesied he would be something " ! 
— I shall never write a line without thinking 
of the source of my first praise, be assured. 

I am, dear sir. 

Yours most truly and obliged, 

Robert Browning. 

March 31, 1833. 

Mr. Fox was then editor of a periodical 
called the " Monthly Repository," which, as 
his daughter, Mrs. Bridell-Fox, writes in her 
graceful article on Robert Browning, in the 
" Argosy " for February, 1890, he was en- 
deavoring to raise from its original denomi- 



82 ROBERT BROWNING. 

national character into a first-class literary 
and political journal. The articles comprised 
in the volume for 1833 are certainly full of 
interest and variety, at once more popular and 
more solid than those prescribed by the pres- 
ent fashion of monthly magazines. He re- 
viewed " Pauline " favorably in its April num- 
ber — that is, as soon as it had appeared ; and 
the young poet thus received from him an 
introduction to what should have been, though 
it probably was not, a large circle of intelH- 
gent readers. 

The poem was characterized by its author, 
five years later, in a fantastic note appended 
to a copy of it, as " the only remaining crab 
of the shapely Tree of Life in my Fool's Par- 
adise." This name is ill bestowed upon a 
work which, however wild a fruit of Mr. 
Bro waning' s genius, contains, in its many lines 
of exquisite fancy and deep pathos, so much 
that is rich and sweet. It had also, to dis- 
card metaphor, its faults of exaggeration and 
confusion ; and it is of these that Mr. Brown- 
ing was probably thinking when he wrote his 



CHARACTERISTICS OF '' PAULINE:' 83 

more serious apologetic preface to its reprint 
in 1868. But these faults were partly due to 
his conception of the character which he had 
tried to depict ; and partly to the inherent 
difficulty of depicting one so complex, in a 
succession of mental and moral states, u're- 
spectively of the conditions of time, place, and 
circumstance which were involved in them. 
Only a very powerful imagination could have 
inspired such an attempt. A still more con- 
spicuous effort of creative genius reveals itself 
at its close. The moment chosen for the 
" Confession " has been that of a supreme 
moral or physical crisis. The exhaustion 
attendant on this is' directly expressed by the 
person who makes it, and may also be recog- 
nized in the vivid, yet confusing, intensity of 
the reminiscences of which it consists. But 
we are left in complete doubt as to whether 
the crisis is that of approaching death or 
incipient convalescence, or which character 
it bears in the sufferer's mind -, and the lan- 
guage used in the closing pages is such as to 
suggest, without the slightest break in poetic 



84 ROBERT BROWNING. 

continuityj alternately the one conclusion and 
tlie other. This was intended by Brown- 
ing to assist his anonymity ; and when the 
writer in " Tait's Magazine " spoke of the 
poem as a piece of pure bewilderment, he ex- 
pressed the natural judgment of the Philistine, 
while proving himself such. If the notice by 
J, S. Mill, which this criticism excluded, was 
indeed — as Mr. Browning always believed — 
much more sympathetic, I can only record my 
astonishment ; for there never was a large and 
cultivated intelHgence one can imagine less in 
harmony than his with the poetic excesses, or 
even the poetic qualities of " Pauline." But 
this is a digression. 

Mr. Fox, though an accomplished critic, 
made very light of the artistic blemishes of 
the work. His admiration for it was as gen- 
erous as it was genuine ; and, having recog- 
nized in it the hand of a rising poet, it was 
more congenial to him to hail that poet's ad- 
vent than to register his shortcomings. 

" The poem," he says, " though evidently a 
hasty and imperfect sketch, has truth and life 



MR. FOX'S REVIEW. 85 

in it, which gave us the thrill, and laid hold 
of us with the power, the sensation of which 
has never yet failed us as a test of genius." 

But it had also, in his mind, a distinguish- 
ing characteristic, which raised it above the 
sphere of merely artistic criticism. The arti- 
cle continues : — 

" We have never read anything more purely 
confessional. The whole composition is of 
the spirit, spiritual. The scenery is in the 
chambers of thought ; the agencies are pow- 
ers and passions ; the events are transitions 
from one state of spiritual existence to an- 
other." 

And we learn from the context that he 
accepted this confessional and introspective 
quality as an expression of the highest emo- 
tional life — of the essence, therefore, of reli- 
gion. On this point the sincerest admirers of 
the poem may find themselves at issue with 
Mr. Fox. Its sentiment is warmly religious ; 
it is always, in a certain sense, spiritual ; but 
its intellectual activities are exercised on en- 
tirely temporal ground, and this fact would 



86 ROBERT BROWNING. 

generally be admitted as the negation of spir- 
ituality in the religious sense of the word. 
No difference, however, of opinion as to his 
judgment of " Pauline " can lessen our appre° 
ciation of Mr. Fox's encouraging kindness to 
its author. No one who loved Mr. Browning 
in himself, or in his work, can read the last 
lines of this review without a throb of affec- 
tionate gratitude for the sympathy so un- 
grudgingly, and — as he wrote during his 
latest years — so opportunely given : — 

" In recognizing a poet we cannot stand 
upon trifles nor fret ourselves about such mat- 
ters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for 
that afterwards, when larger works come be- 
fore us. Archimedes in the bath had many 
particulars to settle about specific gravities 
and Hiero's crown, but he first gave a glorious 
leap and shouted Eureka ! " 

Many persons have discovered Mr. Brown- 
ing since he has been known to fame. One 
only discovered him in his obscurity. 

Next to that of Mr. Fox stands the name 
of John Forster among the first spontaneous 



FIRST LITERARY EXPERIENCE. 87 

appreciators of Mr. Browning's genius ; and 
his admiration was, in its own way, the more 
valuable for the circumstances which pre- 
cluded in it all possible, even unconscious, bias 
of personal interest or sympathy. But this 
belongs to a somewhat later period of our 
history. 

I am dwelling at some length on this first 
experience of Mr. Browning's literary career, 
because the confidence which it gave him de- 
termined its immediate future, if not its ulti- 
mate course, — because, also, the poem itself 
is more important to the understanding of his 
mind than perhaps any other of his isolated 
works. It was the earliest of his dramatic 
creations ; it was therefore inevitably the 
most instinct with himself ; and we may re- 
gard the " Confession "as to a great extent 
his own, without for an instant ignoring the 
imaginative element which necessarily and cer- 
tainly entered into it. At one moment, in- 
deed, his utterance is so emphatic that we 
should feel it to be direct, even if we did not 
know it to be true. The passage beginning 



88 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" I am made up of an intensest life," conveys 
something more than the writer's actual psy- 
chological state. The feverish desire of life 
became gradually modified into a more or less 
active intellectual and imaginative curiosity ; 
but the sense of an individual, self-centred, 
and, as it presented itself to him, uncondi- 
tioned existence, survived all the teachings of 
experience, and often indeed unconsciously 
imposed itself upon them. 

I have already alluded to that other and 
more pathetic fragment of distinct autobiog- 
raphy Tvhich is to be found in the invocation 
to the " Sun-treader." Mr. Fox, who has 
quoted great part of it, justly declares that 
" the fervency, the remembrance, the half- 
regret mingling with its exultation, are as true 
as its leading image is beautiful." The " ex- 
ultation " is in the triumph of Shelley's rising 
fame ; the regret, for the lost privilege of 
worshiping in solitary tenderness at an ob- 
scure shrine. The double mood would have 
been characteristic of any period of Mr. Brown- 
ing's life. 



OTHER NOTICES. 89 

The artistic influence of Shelley is also dis- 
cernible in the natural imagery of the poem, 
which reflects a fitful and emotional fancy 
instead of the direct poetic vision of the au- 
thor's later work. 

" Pauline " received another and graceful 
tribute two months later than the review. In 
an article of the " Monthly Repository," and 
in the course of a description of some luxu- 
riant wood-scenery, the following passage oc- 
curs : — 

" Shelley and Tennyson are the best books 
for this place. . . . They are natives of this 
soil ; literally so ; and if planted would grow 
as surely as a crowbar in Kentucky sprouts 
tenpenny nails. Prohatwn est. Last autumn 

L dropped a poem of Shelley's down there ^ 

in the wood, amongst the thick, damp, rotting 
leaves, and this spring some one found a del- 
icate, exotic-looking plant, growing wild on 
the very spot, with ' Pauline ' hanging from 

^ Mr^ Browning's copy of Rosalind and Helen, which he 
had lent to Miss Flower, and which she lost in this wood on 
a picnic. 



90 ROBERT BROWNING. 

its slender stalk. Unripe fruit it may be, but 
of pleasant flavor and promise, and a mellower 
produce, it may be hoped, will follow." 

This and a bald thouQ^h well-meant notice 
in the " Athenaeum " exhaust its literary his- 
tory for this period.^ 

The anonymity of the poem was not long 
preserved ; there was no reason why it should 
be. But " Pauline " was, from the first, little 
known or discussed beyond the immediate cir- 
cle of the poet's friends ; and when, twenty 
years later, Dante Gabriel Rossetti unexpect- 
edly came upon it in the library of the Brit- 
ish Museum, he could only surmise that it 
had been written by the author of " Paracel- 



5> 

sus. 



The only recorded event of the next two 

^ Not quite, it appears. Since I wrote the above words, 
Mr. Dykes Campbell has kindly copied for me the following 
extract from the Literary Gazette of March 23, 1833 : — 

" Pauline : a Fragment of a Confession, pp. 71. London, 
1833. Saunders and Otley. 

" Somewhat mystical, somewhat poetical, somewhat sen- 
sual, and not a little unintelligible, — this is a dreamy vol- 
ume, without an object, and unfit for publication." 



RUSSIAN JOURNEY. 91 

years was Mr. Browning's visit to Eussia, 
which took place in the winter of 1833-34. 
The Russian consul-general, Mr. Benckhau- 
sen, had taken a great liking to him, and 
being sent to St. Petersburg on some special 
mission, proposed that he should accompany 
him, nominally in the character of secretary. 
The letters written to his sister during this, 
as during every other absence, were full of 
graphic description, and would have been a 
mine of interest for the student of his imagi- 
native Hfe. They are, unfortunately, all de- 
stroyed, and we have only scattered reminis- 
cences of what they had to tell ; but we know 
how strangely he was impressed by some of 
the circumstances of the journey : above all, 
by the endless monotony of snow-covered pine 
forest, through which he and his companion 
rushed for days and nights at the speed of six 
post-horses, without seeming to move from one 
spot. He enjoyed the society of St. Peters- 
burg, and was fortunate enough, before his 
return, to witness the breaking-up of the ice 
on the Neva, and see the Czar perform the 



92 ROBERT BROWNING. 

yearly ceremony of drinking the first glass of 
water from it. He was absent about three 
months. 

The one active career which would have 
recommended itself to him in his earlier youth 
was diplomacy ; it was that which he subse- 
quently desired for his son. He would indeed 
not have been averse to any post of activity 
and responsibility not unsuited to the training 
of a gentleman. Soon after his return from 
Russia he applied for appointment on a mis- 
sion which was to be dispatched to Persia ; 
and the careless wording of the answer which 
his application received made him think for a 
moment that it had been granted. He was 
much disappointed when he learned, through 
an interview with the " chief/' that the place 
was otherwise filled. 

In 1834 he began a little series of contribu- 
tions to the " Monthly Repository/' extending 
into 1835-36, and consisting of five poems. 
The earliest of these was a sonnet, not con- 
tained in any edition of Mr. Browning's 
works, and republished, for the first time, in 



EARLY POEMS. 93 

Mr. Gosse's " Personalia/' on the indirect 
suggestion of Mrs. Bridell-Fox. The second, 
beginning " A king lived long ago," was to 
appear, with alterations and additions, as one 
\of " Pippa's " songs. " Porphyria' s Lover" 
and " Johannes Agricola in Meditation " were 
reprinted together in " Bells and Pomegran- 
ates," under the heading of " Madhouse Cells." 
The fifth consisted of the lines beginning 
" Still ailing. Wind ? wilt be appeased or 
no?" afterwards introduced into the sixth 
section of "James Lee's Wife." The son- 
net is not very striking, though hints of the 
poet's future psychological subtlety are not 
wanting in it ; but his most essential dra- 
matic quality reveals itseK in the last three 
poems. 

This winter of 1834-35 witnessed the birth, 
perhaps also the extinction, of an amateur pe- 
riodical, established by some of Mr. Brown- 
ing's friends ; foremost among these the young 
Dowsons, afterwards connected with Alfred 
Domett. The magazine was called the " Tri- 
fler," and published in monthly numbers of 



94 ROBERT BROWNING. 

about ten pages each. It collapsed from lack 
of pocket-money on the part of the editors ; 
but Mr. Browning had written for it one let- 
ter, February, 1835, signed with his usual 
initial Z, and entitled " Some strictures on a 
late article in the ' Trifler.' " This boyish pro- 
duction sparkles wdth fun, while affecting the 
lengthy quaintnesses of some obsolete modes of 
speech. The article which it attacks was " A 
Dissertation on Debt and Debtors," where the 
subject was, I imagine, treated in the ortho- 
dox way : and he expends all his paradox in 
showing that indebtedness is a necessary con- 
dition of human life, and all his sophistry in 
confusing it with the abstract sense of obliga- 
tion. It is, perhaps, scarcely fair to call atten- 
tion to such a mere argumentative and literary 
freak ; but there is something so comical in a 
defense of debt, however transparent, proceed- 
ing from a man to whom never in his life a 
bill can have been sent in twice, and who 
would always have preferred ready-money pay- 
ment to receiving a bill at all, that I may be 
forgiven for quoting some passages from it. 



LETTER IN THE " TRIFLERr 95 

" For to be man is to be a debtor : liintins!* 
but slightly at the grand and primeval debt 
implied in the idea of a creation, as matter too 
hard for ears like thine (for saith not Luther, 
What hath a cow to do with nutmegs?), I 
must, nevertheless, remind thee that all mor= 
alists have concurred in considerins: this our 
mortal sojourn as indeed an uninterrupted 
state of debt, and the world our dwelling-place 
as represented by nothing so aptly as by an 
inn, wherein those who lodge most commodi- 
ously have in perspective a proportionate score 
to reduce,^ and those who fare least delicately, 
but an insignificant shot to discharge — or, 
as the tuneful Quarles well phraseth it, — 

He 's most in debt who lingers out the day, 
Who dies betimes has less and less to pay. 

So far, therefore, from these sagacious ethics 
holding that 

Debt cramps the energies of the soul, etc. 

^ Miss Hickey, on reading this passage, has called my at- 
tention to the fact that the sentiment which it parodies is 
identical with that expressed in these words of Prospice, — 

... in a minute pay glad life's arrears 
Of pain, darkness, and cold. 



96 ROBERT BROWNING. 

as thou pratest, 't is plain that they have willed 
on the very outset to inculcate this truth on 
the mind of every man, — no barren and in- 
consequential dogma, but an effectual, ever 
influencing and productive rule of life, — that 
he is born a debtor, lives a debtor, — ay, 
friend, and when thou diest, will not some 
judicious bystander — no recreant as thou to 
the bonds of nature, but a good borrower and 
true — remark, as did his grandsire before 
him on like occasions, that thou hast 'paid 
the debt of nature ' ? Ha ! I have thee ' be- 
yond the rules,' as one (a bailiff) may say ! " 

Such performances supplied a distraction to 
the more serious work of writing "Paracel- 
sus," which was to be concluded in March, 
1835, and which occupied the foregoing win- 
ter months. We do not know to what extent 
Mr. Browning had remained in communication 
with Mr. Fox ; but the following letters show 
that the friend of " Pauline " gave ready 
and efficient help in the strangely difficult 
task of securing a publisher for the new 
poem. 



LETTERS TO MR. FOX. 97 

The first is dated April 2, 1835, 

Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge the re- 
ceipt of your letter : Sardanapalus " could not 
go on multiplying kingdoms" — nor I protes- 
tations, — but I thank you very much. 

You will oblige me indeed by forwarding 
the introduction to Moxon. I merely sug- 
gested him in particular, on account of his 
good name and fame among author-folk, be- 
sides he has himself written — as the Ameri- 
cans say — '' more poetry 'an you can shake 
a stick at." So I hope we shall come to 
terms. 

I also hope my poem will turn out not ut- 
terly unworthy your kind interest, and more 
deserving your favor than anything of mine 
you have as yet seen ; indeed I all along pro- 
posed to myself such an endeavor, for it v/ill 
never do for one so distinguished by past 
praise to prove nobody after all — nous ver- 
rons» I am, dear sir, 

Yours most truly and obliged, 

RoBT. Browning. 



98 ROBERT BROWNING. 

On April 16 he wrote again as follovs : — 

Dear Sir, — Your communication glad- 
dened the cockles of my heart. I lost no time 
in presenting myself to Moxon, but no sooner 

was Mr. Clarke's letter perused than the Mox- 

* 
onian visage lowered exceedingly thereat — 

the Moxonian accent grew dolorous there- 
upon : " Artevelde " has not paid expenses by 
about thirty odd pounds. Tennyson's poetry 
is ''popular at Camhridge,^^ and yet of 800 
copies which were printed of his last, some 300 
only have gone off : Mr. M. hardly knows 
whether he shall ever venture again, etc., etc., 
and in short begs to decline even inspecting 
it, etc., etc. 

I called on Saunders and Otley at once, and, 
marvel of marvels, do really think there is 
some chance of our coming to decent terms — 
I shall know at the beginning of next week, 
but am not over-sano^uine. 

You will " sarve me out " ? two words to 
that ; being the man you are, you must need 
very little telling from me, of the real feeling 



APPRECIATION OF CRITICISM. 99 

I have of your criticism's worth, and if I have 
had no more of it, surely I am hardly to blame, 
who have in more than one instance bored you 
sufficiently : but not a particle of your article 
has been rejected or neglected by your observ- 
ant humble servant, and very proud shall I be 
if my new work bear in it the marks of the 
influence under which it was undertaken — 
and if I prove not a fit compeer of the potter 
in Horace who anticipated an amphora and 
produced a porridge-pot. I purposely keep 
back the subject until you see my conception 
of its capabilities — otherwise you would be 
planning a vase fit to give the go-by to Evan- 
der's best crockery, which my cantharus would 
cut but a sorry figure beside — hardly up to 
the ansa. 

But such as it is, it is very earnest and sug- 
gestive — and likely, I hope, to do good ; and 
thouo^h I am rather scared at the thoug'ht of a 
fresh eye going over its 4,000 lines — discov- 
ering blemishes of all sorts which my one wit 
cannot avail to detect: fools treated as sages, 
obscure passages, slipshod verses, and much 

L.ofC. 



100 ROBERT BROWNING. 

that worse is, — yet on the whole I am not 
much afraid of the issue, and I would give 
something to be allowed to read it some morn- 
ing to you — for every rap o' the knuckles I 
should get a clap o' the back, I know. 

I have another affair on hand, rather of a 
more popular nature, I conceive, but not so 
decisive and explicit on a point or two — so I 
decide on trying the question with this : I 
really shall need your notice, on this account ; 
I shall affix my name and stick my arms 
akimbo ; there are a few precious bold bits 
here and there, and the drift and scope are 
awfully radical — I am " off " forever with 
the other side, but must by all means be " on " 
with yours — a position once gained, w^orthier 
works shall follow — therefore a certain writer ^ 
who meditated a notice (it matters not lauda- 
tory or otherwise) on " Pauline " in the '' Ex- 
aminer," must be benignant or supercilious as 
he shall choose, but in no case an idle specta- 
tor of my first appearance on any stage (hav- 
ing previously only dabbled in private theatri- 

1 Mr. John Stuart Mill. 



COUNT DE RIPERT-MONCLAR. 101 

cals) and bawl " Hats off ! " " Down in front ! " 
etc. J as soon as I get to the proscenium ; and 
he may depend that though my " Now is the 
winter of our discontent " be rather awkward, 
yet there shall be occasional outbreaks of good 
stuff — that I shall warm as I get on, and 
finally wish " Kichmond at the bottom of the 
seas," etc., in the best style imaginable. 

Excuse all this swagger, I know you will, 
and 

(The signature has been cut off ; evidently 
for an autograph.) 

Mr. Effingham Wilson was induced to pub- 
lish the poem, but more, we understand, on 
the ground of radical sympathies in Mr. Fox 
and the author than on that of its intrinsic 
worth. 

The title-page of " Paracelsus " introduces 
us to one of the warmest friendships of Mr. 
Browning's Hfe. Count de Ripert-Monclar 
was a young French Royalist, one of those 
who had accompanied the Duchesse de Berri 
on her Chouan expedition, and was then, for 



102 ROBERT BROWNING. 

a few years, spending his summers in Eng- 
land ; ostensibly for his pleasure, really — as 
he confessed to the Browning family — in the 
character of private agent of communication 
between the royal exiles and their friends in 
France. He was four years older than the 
poet, and of intellectual tastes which created 
an immediate bond of union between them. 
In the course of one of their conversations, he 
suggested the life of Paracelsus as a possible 
subject for a poem ; but on second thoughts 
pronounced it unsuitable, because it gave no 
room for the introduction of love : about 
which, he added, every young man of their 
age thought he had something quite new to 
say. Mr. Browning decided, after the neces- 
sary study, that he would write a poem on 
Paracelsus, but treating him in his own way. 
It was dedicated, in fulfillment of a promise, 
to the friend to whom its inspiration had been 
due. 

The Count's visits to England entirely 
ceased, and the two friends did not meet for 
twenty years. Then, one day, in a street in 



PARACELSUS. 103 

Rome, Mr. Browning heard a voice behind 
him crying, " Robert ! " He turned, and there 
was " Amedee." Both were, by that time, 
married ; the Count — then, I beHeve, Mar- 
quis — to an EngHsh lady. Miss Jerningham. 
Mrs. Browning, to whom of course he was in- 
troduced, Hked him very much.^ 

Mr. Browning did treat Paracelsus in his 
own way ; and in so doing produced a charac- 
ter — at all events a history — which, accord- 
ing to recent judgments, approached far nearer 
to the reality than any conception which had 
until then been formed of it. He had care- 
fully collected all the known facts of the great 
discoverer's life, and interpreted them with a 
sympathy which was no less an intuition of 
their truth than a reflection of his own o'enius 
upon them. We are enabled in some measure 
to judge of this by a paper entitled " Paracel- 
sus, the Reformer of Medicine," written by 

1 A minor result of the intimacy was that Mr. Browning 
became member, in 1835, of the Institut Historique, and in 
1836 of the Soci^td Frangaise de Statistique Universelle, to 
both of which learned bodies his friend belonged. 



104 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Dr. Edward Berdoe for the Browning Society, 
and read at its October meeting in 1888 ; and 
in the difficulty which exists for most of us of 
verifying the historical data of Mr. Brown- 
ing's poem, it becomes a valuable guide to, as 
well as an interesting comment upon it. 

Dr. Berdoe reminds us that we cannot un- 
derstand the real Paracelsus without reference 
to the occult sciences so largely cultivated in 
his day, as also to the mental atmosphere 
which produced them ; and he quotes in illus- 
tration a passage from the writings of that 
Bishop of Spanheim who was the instructor 
of Paracelsus, and who appears as such in 
the poem. The passage is a definition of di- 
vine magic, which is apparently another term 
for alchemy ; and lays down the great doc- 
trine of all mediaeval occultism, as of all mod- 
ern theosophy — of a soul-power equally op- 
erative in the material and the immaterial, in 
nature and in the consciousness of man. 

The same clue will guide us, as no other 
can, through what is apparently conflicting 
in the aims and methods, anomalous in the 



TRAITS OF PARACELSUS. 105 

moral experience, of the Paracelsus of the 
poem. His feverish pursuit, among the 
things of Nature, of an ultimate of know- 
ledge, not contained, even in fragments, in 
her isolated truths ; the sense of failure which 
haunts his most valuable attainments ; his 
tampering with the lower or diabolic magic, 
when the divine has failed ; the ascetic exalta- 
tion in which he begins his career ; the sud- 
den awakening to the spiritual sterility which 
has been consequent on it, — all these find 
their place, if not always their counterpart, in 
the real Hfe. 

The language of Mr. Browning's Paracel- 
slis, his attitude towards himself and the 
world, are not, however, quite consonant with 
the alleged facts. They are more appropri- 
ate to an ardent explorer of the world of ab- 
stract thought than to a mystical scientist 
pursuing the secret of existence. He pre- 
serves, in all his mental vicissitudes, a lofti- 
ness of tone and a unity of intention, difficult 
to connect, even in fancy, with the real man, 
in whom the inherited superstitions and the 



106 ROBERT BROWNING. 

prognostics of true science must often have 
clashed with each other. Dr. Berdoe's pic- 
ture of the " Reformer/' drawn more directly 
from history, conveys this double impression. 
Mr. Browning has rendered him more simple 
by, as it were, recasting him in the atmos- 
phere of a more modern tiiae, and of his own 
intellectual life. This poem still, therefore, 
belongs to the same group as " Pauline," 
though, as an effort of dramatic creation, 
superior to it. 

We find the poet with still less of dra- 
matic disguise in the death-bed revelation 
which forms so beautiful a close to the story. 
It supplies a fitter comment to the errors 
of the dramatic Paracelsus, than to those of 
the historical, whether or not its utterance 
was within the compass of historical proba- 
bility, as Dr. Berdoe believes. In any case it 
was the direct product of Mr. Browning's 
mind, and expressed what was to be his per- 
manent conviction. It might then have been 
an echo of German pantheistic philosophies. 
From the point of view of science — of mod- 



EVIDENCE OF HUMAN INSIGHT. 107 

ern science, at least — it was prophetic ; al- 
though the prophecy of one for whom evolu- 
tion could never mean less or more than a 
divine creation operating on this progressive 
plan. 

The more striking, perhaps, for its personal 
quality are the evidences of imaginative sym- 
pathy, even direct human insight, in which 
the poem abounds. Festus is, indeed, an es- 
sentially human creature : the man — it might 
have been the woman — of unambitious intel- 
lect and large intelligence of the heart, in 
whom so many among us have found comfort 
and help. We often feel, in reading " Paul- 
ine," that the poet in it was older than the 
man. The impression is more strongly and 
more definitely conveyed by this second work, 
which has none of the intellectual crudeness 
of "Pauline," though it still belongs to an 
early phase of the author's intellectual life : 
not only its mental, but its moral maturity, 
seems so much in advance of his uncompleted 
twenty-third year. 

To the first edition of "Paracelsus" was 



108 ROBERT BROWNING. 

affixed a preface, now long discarded, but 
which acquires fresh interest in a retrospect 
of the author's completed work ; for it lays 
down the constant principle of dramatic crea- 
tion by which that work was to be inspired. 
It also anticipates probable criticism of the 
artistic form which on this, and so many sub- 
sequent occasions, he selected for it. 

" I am anxious that the reader should not, 
at the very outset, — mistaking my perform- 
ance for one of a class with which it has 
nothing in common, — judge it by principles 
on which it was never moulded, and subject 
it to a standard to which it was never meant 
to conform. I therefore anticipate his dis- 
covery, that it is an attempt, probably more 
novel than happy, to reverse the method usu- 
ally adopted by writers whose aim it is to set 
forth any phenomenon of the mind or the 
passions, by the operation of persons and 
events ; and that, instead of having recourse 
to an external machinery of incidents to create 
and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I 
have ventured to display somewhat minutely 



PREFACE TO ''PARACELSUS:' 109 

the mood itself in its rise and progress, and 
have suffered the agency by which it is in- 
fluenced and determined, to be generally dis- 
cernible in its effects alone, and subordinate 
throughout, if not altogether excluded : and 
this for a reason. I have endeavored to write 
a poem, not a drama : the canons of the drama 
are well known, and I cannot but think that, 
inasmuch as they have immediate regard to 
stage representation, the peculiar advantages 
they hold out are really such only so long as 
the purpose for which they were at first in- 
stituted is kept in view. I do not very well 
understand what is called a Dramatic Poem, 
wherein all those restrictions only submitted 
to on account of compensating good in the 
original scheme are scrupulously retained, as 
though for some special fitness in themselves 
— and all new facilities placed at an author's 
disposal by the vehicle he selects, as pertina- 
ciously rejected." . . . 

Mr. Fox reviewed this also in the " Monthly 
Repository." The article might be obtained 
through the kindness of Mrs. Bridell-Fox ; 



110 ROBERT BROWNING. 

but it will be sufficient for my purpose to 
refer to its closing paragraph, as given by 
her in the " Argosy " of February, 1890. It 
was a final expression of what the writer 
regarded as the fitting intellectual attitude to- 
wards a rising poet, whose aims and methods 
lay so far beyond the range of the conven- 
tional rules of poetry. The great event in 
the history of " Paracelsus " was John Forster's 
article on it in the " Examiner." Mr. Fors- 
ter had recently come to town. He could 
barely have heard Mr. Browning's name, and, 
as he afterwards told him, was perplexed in 
reading the poem by the question of whether 
its author was an old or a young man ; but 
he knew that a writer in the " Athenaeum " 
had called it rubbish, and he had taken it up 
as a probable subject for a piece of slashing 
criticism. What he did write can scarcely be 
defined as praise. It was the simple, un- 
grudging admission of the unequivocal power, 
as well as brilliant promise, which he recog- 
nized in the work. This mutual experience 
was the introduction to a long and, certainly 
on Mr. Browning's part, a sincere friendship. 



CHAPTER VI. 

1835-1838. 

Removal to Hatcham ; some Particulars. — Renewed Inter- 
course with the second Family of Robert Browning's 
Grandfather. — Reuben Browning. — William Shergold 
Browning. — Visitors at Hatcham. — Thomas Carlyle. — 
Social Life. — New Friends and Acquaintance. — Intro- 
duction to Macready. — New Year's Eve at Elm Place. — 
Introduction to John Forster. — Miss Fanny Ha worth. — 
Miss Martineau. — Serjeant Talf ourd. — The " Ion " Sup- 
per. — " Strafford." — Relations with Macready. — Per- 
formance of " Strafford." — Letters concerning it from 
Mr. Browning and Miss Flower. — Personal Glimpses of 
Robert Browning. — Rival Forms of Dramatic Inspiration. 
— Relation of " Strafford " to " Sordello." — Mr. Robert- 
son and the " Westminster Review." 

It was soon after this time^ though the 
exact date cannot be recalled, that the Brown- 
ing family moved from Camberwell to Hatch° 
am. Some such change had long been in 
contemplation, for their house was now too 
small ; and the finding one more suitable, in 



112 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the latter place, had decided the question. 
The new home possessed great attractions. 
The long, low rooms of its upper story sup- 
plied abundant accommodation for the elder 
Mr. Browning's six thousand books. Mrs. 
Browning was suffering greatly from her 
chronic ailment, neuralgia ; and the large gar- 
den, opening on to the Surrey hills, promised 
her all the benefits of country air. There 
were a coach-house and stable, which, by a 
curious, probably old-fashioned, arrangement, 
formed part of the house, and were accessible 
from it. Here the " good horse," York, was 
eventually put up ; and near this, in the gar- 
den, the poet soon had another though hum- 
bler friend in the person of a toad, which 
became so much attached to him that it would 
follow him as he walked. He visited it daily, 
where it burrowed under a white rose tree, 
announcing himself by a pinch of gravel 
dropped into its hole ; and the creature would 
crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, 
and reward the act with that loving glance 
of the soft full eyes which Mr. Browning 



REMOVAL TO HATCHAM. 113 

has recalled Id one of the poems of "Aso- 
lando." 

This change of residence brought the 
grandfather's second family, for the first time, 
into close as well as friendly contact with the 
first. Mr. Browning had always remained on 
outwardly friendly terms with his stepmother ; 
and both he and his children were rewarded 
for this forbearance by the cordial relations 
which grew up between themselves and two 
of her sons. But in the earher days they 
lived too far apart for frequent meeting. The 
old Mrs. Browning was now a widow, and, in 
order to be near her relations, she also came 
to Hatcham, and established herself there in 
close neighborhood to them. She had then 
with her only a son and a daughter, those 
known to the poet's friends as Uncle Reuben 
and Aunt Jemima; respectively nine years, 
and one year, older than he. " Aunt Jemi- 
ma" married not long afterwards, and is 
chiefly remembered as having been very amia- 
ble, and, in early youth, to use her nephew's 
words, " as beautiful as the day ; " but kindly, 



114 ROBERT BROWNING. 

merry " Uncle Reuben/' then clerk in the 
Rothschilds' London bank/ became a conspic- 
uous member of the family circle. This does 
not mean that the poet was ever indebted to 
him for pecuniary help ; and it is desirable 
that this should be understood, since it has 
been confidently asserted that he was so. So 
long as he was dependent at all, he depended 
exclusively on his father. Even the use of 
his uncle's horse, which might have been 
accepted as a friendly concession on Mr. Reu- 
ben's part, did not really represent one. The 
animal stood, as I have said, in Mr. Browning's 
stable, and it was groomed by his gardener. 
The promise of these conveniences had in- 
duced Reuben Browning to buy a horse 
instead of continuing to hire one. He could 
only ride it on a few days of the week, and it 
was rather a gain than a loss to him that so 
good a horseman as his nephew should exer- 
cise it during the interval. 

1 This uncle's name, and his business relations with the 
great Jewish firm, have contributed to the mistaken theory 
of the poet's descent. 



WILLIAM SHERGOLD BROWNING. 115 

Uncle Reuben was not a great appreciator 
of poetry — at all events of his nephew's ; 
and an irreverent remark on " Sordello," im- 
puted to a more eminent contemporary, pro° 
ceeded, under cover of a friend's name, from 
him. But he had his share of mental endow- 
ments. We are told that he was a good lin- 
guist, and that he wrote on finance under an 
assumed name. He was also, apparently, an 
accomplished classic. Lord Beaconsfield is 
said to have declared that the inscription on a 
silver inkstand, presented to the daughter of 
Lionel Rothschild on her marriage, by the 
clerks at New Court, " was the most appropri- 
ate thing he had ever come across ; " and that 
whoever had selected it must be one of the 
first Latin scholars of the day. It was Mr. 
Reuben Browning. 

Another favorite uncle was WilHam Sher- 
gold Browning, though less intimate with his 
nephew and niece than he would have become 
if he had not married while they were still 
children, and settled in Paris, where his fa- 
ther's interest had placed him in the Roths- 



116 ROBERT BROWNING. 

child house. He is known by his " History 
of the Huguenots," a work, we are told, " full 
of research, with a reference to contemporary 
literature for almost every occurrence men° 
tioned or referred to." He also wrote the 
" Provost of Paris," and " Hoel Morven," 
historical novels, and " Leisure Hours," a col- 
lection of miscellanies ; and was a contributor 
for some years to the " Gentleman's Maga- 
zine." It was chiefly from this uncle that 
Miss Browning and her brother heard the now 
often-repeated stories of their probable ances- 
tprs, Micaiah Browning, who distinguished 
himself at the siege of Derry, and that com- 
mander of the ship " Holy Ghost " who con- 
veyed Henry V. to France before the battle 
of Agincourt, and received the coat-of-arms, 
with its emblematic waves, in reward for his 
service. Robert Browning was also indebted 
to him for the acquaintance of M. de Ripert- 
Monclar ; for he was on friendly terms with 
the uncle of the young count, the Marquis 
de Fortia, a learned man and member of the 
Institut, and gave a letter of introduction — 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 117 

actually, I believe, to his brother Reuben — 
at the Marquis's request.^ 

The friendly relations with Carlyle, which 
resulted in his high estimate of the poet's 
mother, also began at Hatcham. On one occa- 
sion he took his brother, the doctor, with him 
to dine there. An earlier and much attached 
friend of the family was Captain Pritchard, 
cousin to the noted physician Dr. Blundell. 
He enabled the young Robert, whom he knew 
from the age of sixteen, to attend some of 
Dr. Blundell's lectures ; and this aroused in 
him a considerable interest in the sciences con- 
nected with medicine, though, as I shall have 
occasion to show, no knowledge of either 
disease or its treatment ever seems to have 
penetrated into his life. A Captain Lloyd 

1 A grandson of William Shergold, Robert Jardine Brown- 
ing, graduated at Lincoln College, was called to the Bar, and 
is now Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales, where his 
name first gave rise to a report that he was Mr. Browning's 
son, while the announcement of his marriage was, for a mo- 
ment, connected with Mr. Browning himself. He was also 
intimate with the poet and his sister, who liked him very 
much. 



118 ROBERT BROWNING. 

is indi-rectly associated with " The Flight of 
the Duchess." That p^em was not completed 
according to its original plan ; and it was the 
always welcome occurrence of a visit from this 
gentleman which arrested its completion. Mr. 
Browning vividly remembered how the click 
of the garden gate, and the sight of the famil- 
iar figure advancing towards the house, had 
broken in upon his work and dispelled its first 
inspiration. 

The appearance of " Paracelsus " did not 
give the young poet his just place in popular 
judgment and public esteem. A generation 
was to pass before this was conceded to him. 
But it compelled his recognition by the lead- 
ing or rising literary men of the day ; and a 
fuller and more varied social life now opened 
before him. The names of Serjeant Talfourd, 
Home, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall (Procter), 
Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Eliot 
Warburton, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Walter 
Savage Landor, represent, with that of Fors- 
ter, some of the acquaintances made, or the 
friendships begun, at this period. Prominent 



FRIENDS, OLD AND NEW. 119 

among the friends that were to be, was also 
Archer Gurney, well known in later life as 
the Rev. Archer Gurney, and chaplain to the 
British embassy in Paris. His sympathies 
were at present largely absorbed by politics ; 
he was contesting the representation of some 
county, on the Conservative side. But he took 
a very vivid interest in Mr. Browning's poems ; 
and this perhaps fixes the beginning of the 
intimacy at a somewhat later date, since a 
pretty story by which it was illustrated con- 
nects itself with the publication of " Bells and 
Pomegranates." He himself wrote dramas 
and poems. Su" John, afterwards Lord, Han- 
mer was also much attracted by the young 
poet, who spent a pleasant week with him at 
Bettisfield Park. He was the author of a vol- 
ume entitled " Fra CipoUo and other Poems," 
from which the motto of " Colombe's Birth- 
day " was subsequently taken. 

The friends, old and new, met in the in- 
formal manner of those days, at afternoon 
dinners, or later suppers, at the houses of Mr. 
Fox, Serjeant Talfourd, and, as we shall see. 



120 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mr. Macready ; and Mr. Fox's daughter, then 
only a Httle girl, but intelligent and observant 
for her years, well remembers the pleasant 
gatherings at which she was allowed to assist, 
when first performances of plays, or first read- 
ings of plays and poems, had brought some 
of the younger and more ardent spirits to- 
gether. Miss Flower, also, takes her place in 
the hterary group. Her sister had married in 
1834, and left her free to live for her own 
pursuits and her own friends ; and Mr. Brown- 
ing must have seen more of her then than 
was possible in his boyish days. 

None, however, of these intimacies were, at 
the time, so important to him as that formed 
with the great actor Macready. They were 
introduced to each other by Mr. Fox early in 
the winter of 1835-36 ; the meeting is thus 
chronicled in Macready' s diary, November 
27:^ — 

" Went from chambers to dine with Rev. 
William Fox, Bayswater. . . . Mr. Robert 

1 Macready^s Reminiscences, edited by Sir Frederick Pol- 
lock ; 1875. 



INTRODUCTION TO MACREADY. 121 

Browning, the author of ^Paracelsus/ came 
in after dinner ; I was very much pleased to 
meet him. His face is full of intelli<rence. 
... I took Mr. Browning on, and requested 
to be allowed to improve my acquaintance 
with him. He expressed himself warmly, as 
gratified by the proposal ; wished to send me 
his book ; we exchanged cards and parted." 
On December 7 he writes : — 
" Read ' Paracelsus,' a work of great dar- 
ing, starred with poetry of thought, feehng, 
and diction, but occasionally obscure ; the 
writer can scarcely fail to be a leading spirit 
of his time." . . . 

He invited Mr. Browning to his country 
house. Elm Place, Elstree, for the last even- 
ing of the year; and again refers to him 
under date of December 31. 

. . . "Our other guests were Miss Hen- 
ney, Forster, Cattermole, Browning, and Mr. 
Munro. Mr. Browning was very popular with 
the whole party ; his simple and enthusiastic 
manner engaged attention, and won opinions 
from all present ; he looks and speaks more 



122 ROBERT BROWNING. 

like a youthful poet than any man I ever 



saw." 



This New Year's Eve visit brought Brown- 
ing and Forster together for the first time. 
The journey to Elstree was then performed 
by coach, and the two young men met at the 
" Blue Posts," where, with one or more of 
Mr. Macready's other guests, they waited for 
the coach to start. They eyed each other with 
interest, both being striking in their way, and 
neither knowing who the other was. When 
the introduction took place at Macready's 
house, Mr. Forster supplemented it by say- 
ing : " Did you see a little notice of you I 
wrote in the ' Examiner ' ? " The two names 
will now be constantly associated in Macready's 
diary, which, except for Mr. Browning's own 
casual utterances, is almost our only record of 
his literary and social life during the next two 
years. 

It was at Elm Place that Mr. Browning first 
met Miss Euphrasia Fanny Haworth, then a 
neighbor of Mr. Macready, residing with her 
mother at Barham Lodge. Miss Haworth was 



MISS FANNY HA WORTH. 123 

still a young woman, but her love and talent 
for art and literature made her a fittino" mem- 
ber of the genial circle to which Mr. Brown- 
ing belonged ; and she and the poet soon be- 
came fast friends. Her first name appears as 
"Eyebright" in " Sordello." His letters to 
her, returned after her death by her brother, 
Mr. Frederick Haworth, supply valuable rec- 
ords of his experiences and of his feelings at 
one very interesting, and one deeply sorrowful, 
period of his history. She was a thoroughly 
kindly, as well as gifted woman, and much 
appreciated by those of the poet's friends who 
knew her as a resident in London during her 
last years. A portrait which she took of him 
in 1874 is considered by some persons very 
good. 

At about this time also, and probably 
through Miss Haworth, he became acquainted 
with Miss Martineau. 

Soon after his introduction to Macready^ if 
not before, Mr. Browning became busy with 
the thought of writing for the stage. The 
diary has this entry for February 16, 1836 : — 



124 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" Forster and Browning called, and talked 
over the plot of a tragedy, which Browning 
had begun to think of : the subject, Narses. 
He said that I had hit him by my perform- 
ance of Othello, and I told him I hoped 
I should make the blood come. It would 
indeed be some recompense for the miseries, 
the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts 
which I have endured in my profession, if, by 
its exercise, I had awakened a spirit of poetry 
whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and 
adorn our degraded drama. May it be ! " 

But Narses was abandoned, and the more 
serious inspiration and more definite motive 
were to come later. They connect themselves 
with one of the pleasant social occurrences 
which must have lived in the young poet's 
memory. On May 26 " Ion " had been per- 
formed for the first time and with great suc- 
cess, Mr. Macready sustaining the principal 
part ; and the great actor and a number of 
their common friends had met at supper at 
Serjeant Talfourd's house to celebrate the oc- 
casion. The party included Wordsworth and 



RELATIONS WITH MACREADY. 125 

Landor, both of whom Mr. Browning then 
met for the first time. Toasts flew right and 
left. Mr. Browning's health was proposed by 
Serjeant Talfourd as that of the youngest poet 
of England, and Wordsworth responded to 
the appeal with very kindly courtesy. The 
conversation afterwards turned upon plays, 
and Macready, who had ignored a half -joking 
question of Miss Mitford, whether, if she 
wrote one, he would act in it, overtook Mr. 
Browning as they were leaving the house, and 
said, "Write a play. Browning, and keep me 
from going to America." The reply was, 
" Shall it be historical and Eno^lish : what do 
you say to a drama on Strafford ? " 

This ready response on the poet's part 
showed that Strafford, as a dramatic subject, 
had been occupying his thoughts. The sub- 
ject was in the air, because Forster was then 
bringing out a life of that statesman, with 
others belonging to the same period. It was 
more than in the air, so far as Browning was 
concerned, because his friend had been dis- 
abled, either through sickness or sorrow, from 



126 ROBERT BROWNING. 

finishing this volume by the appointed time, 
and he, as well he mighty had largely helped 
him in its completion. It was, however, not 
till August 3 that Macready wrote in his 
diary : — 

" Forster told me that Browning had fixed 
on Strafford for the subject of a tragedy ; he 
could not have hit upon one that I could have 
more readily concurred in." 

A previous entry of May 30, the occasion 
of which is only implied, shows with how high 
an estimate of Mr. Browning's intellectual 
importance Macready's professional relations 
to him began. 

" Arriving at chambers, I found a note 
from Browning. What can I say upon it? 
It was a tribute which remunerated me for the 
annoyances and cares of years : it was one of 
the very highest, may I not say the highest, 
honor I have through life received." 

The estimate maintained itself in reference 
to the value of Mr. Browning's work, since he 
wrote on March 13, 1837 : — 

" Read before dinner a few pages of ' Par- 



PROSPECTS OF '' STRAFFORDr 127 

acelsus/ which raises my wonder the more I 
read it. . . . Looked over two plays, which 
it was not possible to read, hardly as I tried. 
. . . Read some scenes in ' Strafford,' which 
restore one to the world of sense and feehng 
once again." 

But as the day of the performance drew 
near, he became at once more anxious and 
more critical. An entry of April 28 com- 
ments somewhat sharply on the dramatic 
faults of " Strafford," besides declaring the 
writer's belief that the only chance for it is in 
the acting, which, " by possibility, might carry 
it to the end without disapprobation," though 
he dares not hope without opposition. It is 
quite conceivable that his first complete study 
of the play, and first rehearsal of it, brought to 
light deficiencies which had previously escaped 
him : but so complete a change of sentiment 
points also to private causes of uneasiness and 
irritation ; and, perhaps, to the knowledge 
that its being saved by collective good acting 
was out of the question. 

" Strafford " was performed at Covent Gar- 



128 ROBERT BROWNING. 

den Theatre on May 1. Mr. Browning wrote 
to Mr. Fox after one of the last rehearsals : — 



May Day, Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Dear Sir, — All my endeavors to pro- 
cure a copy before this morning have been 
fruitless. I send the first book of the first 
bundle. Pray look over it — the alterations 
to-night will be considerable. The complex- 
ion of the piece is, I grieve to say, " perfect 
gallows " just now — our hing^ Mr. Dale> 
being . . . but you '11 see him, and, I fear, 
not much applaud. 

Your unW'Orthy son, in things literary, 

Robert Browning. 

P. S. [in pencil]. — A most unnecessary 
desire, but urged on me by Messrs. Longman : 
no notice on Str. in to-night's " True Sun," ^ 
lest the other papers be jealous ! ! ! 

A second letter, undated, but evidently 
written a day or two later, refers to the prom- 
ised notice, which had then appeared. 

1 Mr. Fox reviewed Strafford in the True Sun. 



LETTER FROM MISS FLOWER. 129 

Tuesday Night. 

No words can express my feelings : I hap- 
pen to be much annoyed and unwell — but 
your most generous notice has almost made 
"my soul well and happy now." 

I thank you, my most kind, most constant 

friend, from my heart for your goodness 

which is brave enough, just now. 

I am ever and increasingly yours, 

Robert Browning. 
You will be glad to see me on the earli- 
est occasion, will you not? I shall certainly 
come. 

A letter from Miss Flower to Miss Sarah 
Fox (sister to the Rev. WilHam Fox), at Nor- 
wich, contains the following passage, which 
evidently continues a chapter of London 
news : — 

" Then ' Strafford ; ' were you not pleased to 
hear of the success of one you must, I think, 
remember a very little boy, years ago ? If not, 
you have often heard us speak of Robert 
Browning : and it is a great deal to have ac- 



130 ROBERT BROWNING. 

complislied a successful tragedy, although he 
seems a good deal annoyed at the go of things 
behind the scenes, and declares he will never 
write a play again, as long as he lives. You 
have no idea of the ignorance and obstinacy 
of the whole set, with here and there an ex- 
ception ; think of his having to write out the 
meaning of the word imjjeachment, as some 
of them thought it meant poaching." 

On the first night, indeed, the fate of " Straf- 
ford " hung in the balance ; it was saved by 
Macready and Miss Helen Faucit. After this 
they must have been better supported, as it 
was received on the second night with enthu- 
siasm by a full house. The catastrophe came 
after the fifth performance, with the desertion 
of the actor who had sustained the part of 
Pym. We cannot now judge whether, even 
under favorable circumstances, the play would 
have had as long a run as was intended ; but 
the casting vote in favor of this view is given 
by the conduct of Mr. Osbaldistone, the man- 
ager, when it was submitted to him. The 
diary says, March 30, that he caught at it with 



PERSONAL GLIMPSES. 131 

avidity, and agreed to produce it without de- 
lay. The terms he offered to the author must 
also have been considered favorable in those 
days. 

The play was published in April by Long- 
man, this time not at the author's expense ; 
but it brouofht no return either to him or to 
his publisher. It was dedicated " in all affec- 
tionate admiration " to William C. Macready. 

We gain some personal glimpses of the 
Browning of 1835-36 ; one especially through 
Mrs. Bridell-Fox, who thus describes her early 
impressions of him : — 

" I remember . . . when Mr. Browning en- 
tered the drawing-room, with a quick, light 
step ; and on hearing from me that my father 
was out, and in fact that nobody was at home 
but myself, he said : ' It 's my birthday to-day ; 
I '11 wait till they come in,' and sitting down 
to the piano, he added : ^ If it won't disturb 
you, I '11 play till they do.' And as he turned 
to the instrument, the bells of some neighbor- 
ing church suddenly burst out with a frantic, 
merry peal. It seemed, to my childish fancy. 



132 ROBERT BROWNING. 

as if in response to the remark that it was his 
birthday. He was then sUm and dark, and 
very handsome ; and — may I hint it? — just a 
trifle of a dandy, addicted to lemon-colored 
kid gloves and such things : quite ' the glass 
of fashion and the mould of form.' But full 
of ambition, eager for success, eager for fame, 
and, what 's more, determined to conquer fame 
and to achieve success." 

I do not think his memory ever taxed him 
with foppishness, though he may have had the 
innocent personal vanity of an attractive young 
man at his first period of much seeing and 
being seen ; but all we know of him at that 
time bears out the impression Mrs. Fox con- 
veys, of a joyous, artless confidence in himself 
and in life, easily depressed, but quickly reas- 
serting ifself ; and in which the eagerness for 
new experiences had freed itself from the re- 
bellious impatience of boyish days. The self- 
confidence had its touches of flippancy and 
conceit ; but on this side it must have been 
constantly counteracted by his gratitude for 
kindness, and by his enthusiastic appreciation 



DRAMATIC INSPIRATION. 133 

of the merits of other men. His powers of 
feeling, indeed, greatly expended themselves 
in this way. He was very attractive to women, 
and, as we have seen, warmly loved by very 
various types of men ; but, except in its poetic 
sense, his emotional nature was by no means 
then in the ascendant : a fact difficult to real- 
ize when we remember the passion of his child- 
hood's love for mother and home, and the new 
and deep capabilities of affection to be de- 
veloped in future days. The poet's soul in 
him was feeling its wings ; the realities of life 
had not yet begun to weight them. 

We see him again at the " Ion " supper, 
in the grace and modesty with which he re- 
ceived the honors then adjudged to him. The 
testimony has been said to come from Miss 
Mitford, but may easily have been supplied 
by Miss Haworth, who was also present on 
this occasion. 

Mr. Browning's impulse towards play-writ- 
ing had not, as we have seen, begun with 
" Strafford." It was still very far from being 
exhausted. And though he had struck out 



134 ROBERT BROWNING. 

for himself another line of dramatic activity, 
his love for the higher theatrical life, and the 
legfitimate inducements of the more lucrative 
and not necessarily less noble form of compo- 
sition, might ultimately in some degree have 
prevailed with him if circumstances had been 
such as to educate his theatrical capabilities, 
and to reward them. His first acted drama 
was, however, an interlude to the production 
of the important group of poems which was to 
be completed by " Sordello ; " and he alludes 
to this later work in an also discarded preface 
to " Strafford," as one on which he had for 
some time been engaged. He even charac- 
terizes the tragedy as an attempt " to freshen 
a jaded mind by diverting it to the healthy 
natures of a grand epoch." ". Sordello " again 
occupied him during the remainder of 1837 
and the beginning of 1838 ; and by the spring 
of this year he must have been thankful to 
vary the scene and mode of his labors by 
means of a first visit to Italy. He announces 
his impending journey, with its immediate 
plan and purpose, in the following note : — 



JOHN ROBERTSON. 135 

TO JOHN ROBERTSON, ESQ. 

Good Friday. 1838. 

Dear Sir, — I was not fortunate enough 
to find you the day before yesterday ; and 
must tell you very hurriedly that I sail this 
morning for Venice, — intending to finish my 
poem among the scenes it describes. I shall 
have your good wishes I know. 
Beheve me, in return, dear sir. 

Yours faithfully and obliged, 
Robert Browning. 

Mr. John Robertson had influence with the 
" Westminster Review," either as editor or 
member of its staff. He had been introduced 
to Mr. Browning by Miss Martineau ; and, 
being a great admirer of " Paracelsus," had 
promised careful attention for " Sordello ; " 
but, when the time approached, he made con- 
ditions of early reading, etc., which Mr. 
Browning thought so unfair towards other 
magazines that he refused to fulfill them. He 
lost his review, and the goodwill of its intend- 



136 ROBERT BROWNING. 

iiig writer ; and even Miss Martineau was 
ever afterwards cooler towards him, though 
his attitude in the matter had been in some 
degree prompted by a chivalrous partisanship 
for her. 



CHAPTER YIL 

1838-1841. 

First Italian Journey. — Letters to Miss Haworth. — Mr. 
John Kenyon. — " Sordello." — Letter to Miss Flower. — 
" Pippa Passes." — " Bells and Pomegranates." 

Mr. Browning sailed from London with 
Captain Davidson of the Norham Castle, a 
merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which 
he found himself the only passenger. A 
striking experience of the voyage, and some 
characteristic personal details, are given in the 
following letter to Miss Haworth. It is dated 
1838, and was probably written before that 
year's summer had closed. 

Tuesday Evening. 

Dear Miss Haworth, — Do look at a 
fuchsia in full bloom, and notice the clear Ht- 
tle honey-drop depending from every flower. 
I have just found it out to my no small satis- 



138 ROBERT BROV/NING. 

faction, — a bee's breakfast. I only answer 
for the long-blossomed sort, though, — indeed, 
for this plant in my room. Taste and be Ti- 
tania ; you can, that is. All this while I for- 
get that you will, perhaps, never guess the 
good of the discovery : I have, you are to 
know, such a love for flowers and leaves — 
some leaves — that I every now and then, in 
an impatience at being able to possess myself 
of them thoroughly, to see them quite, satiate 
myself with their scent, — bite them to bits, 

— so there will be some sense in that. How 
I remember the flowers — even grasses — of 
places I have seen ! Some one flower or weed, 
I should say, that gets some strangehow con- 
nected with them. 

Snowdrops and Tilsit in Prussia go to- 
gether ; cowslips and Windsor Park, for in- 
stance ; flowering palm and some place or 
other in Holland. 

Now to answer what can be answered in the 
letter I was happy to receive last week. I am 
quite well. I did not expect you would write, 

— for none of your written reasons, however. 



LETTER TO MISS HA WORTH. 139 

You will see " Sordello " in a trice, if the fag- 
ging fit holds. I did not write six lines while 
absent (except a scene in a play, jotted down 
as we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar) 

— but I did hammer out some four, two of 
which are addressed to you, two to the Queen ^ 

— the whole to go in Book III. — perhaps^ 
I called you " Eyebright " — meaning a sim- 
ple and sad sort of translation of " Euphrasia " 
into my own language: folks would know 
who Euphrasia, or Fanny, was — and I should 
not know lanthe or Clemanthe. Not that 
there is anything in them to care for, good or 
bad. Shall I say " Eyebright " ? 

I was disappointed in one thing, Canova. 

What companions should I have ? 

The story of the ship must have reached 
you " with a diiference," as Ophelia says ; my 
sister told it to a Mr. Dow, who delivered it to 
Forster, I suppose, who furnished Macready 
with it, who made it over, etc., etc., etc. As 
short as I can tell, this way it happened : the 

1 I know no lines by Mr. Browning directly addressed to 
the Queen. 



140 ROBERT BROWNING. 

captain woke me one bright Sunday morning 
to say there was a ship floating keel upper- 
most half a mile off; they lowered a boat, 
made ropes fast to some floating canvas, and 
towed her towards our vessel. Both met half- 
way, and the little air that had risen an hour 
or two before sank at once. Our men made 
the wreck fast in high glee at having " new 
trousers out of the sails/' and quite sure she 
was a French boat, broken from her moorings 
at Algiers, close by. Ropes were next hove 
(hang this sea-talk !) round her stanchions, and 
after a quarter of an hour's pushing at the 
capstan, the vessel righted suddenly, one dead 
body floating out ; five more were in the fore- 
castle, and had probably been there a month 
under a blazing African sun — don't imagine 
the wretched state of things. They were, 
these six, the " watch below " — (I give you 
the result of the day's observation) — the rest, 
some eight or ten, had been washed overboard 
at first. One or two were Algerines, the rest 
Spaniards. The vessel was a smuggler bound 
for Gibraltar ; there were two stupidly dispro- 



THE STORY OF A SHIP. 141 

portionate guns, taking up the whole deck, 
which was convex and — nay, look you ! [a 
rough pen-and-ink sketch of the different parts 
of the wreck is here introduced] these are the 
gun-rings, and the black square the place 
where the bodies lay. (All the " bulwarks," 
or sides of the top, carried away by the waves.) 
Well, the sailors covered up the hatchway, 
broke up the aft-deck, hauled up tobacco and 
cigars, such heaps of them, and then bale after 
bale of prints and chintz, don't you call it, till 
the captain was half frightened — he would 
get at the ship's papers, he said ; so these 
poor fellows were pulled up, piecemeal, and 
pitched into the sea, the very sailors calling to 
each other to " cover the faces," — no papers 
of importance were found, however, but fif- 
teen swords, powder and ball enough for a 
dozen such boats, and bundles of cotton, etc., 
that would have taken a day to get out ; but 
the captain vowed that after five o'clock she 
should be cut adrift : accordingly she was cast 
loose, not a third of her cargo having been 
touched; and you hardly can conceive the 



142 ROBERT BROWNING. 

strange sight when the battered hulk turned 
round, actually, and looked at us, and then 
reeled off, like a mutilated creature from some 
scoundrel French surgeon's lecture-table, into 
the most gorgeous and lavish sunset in the 
world : there ; only thank me for not taking 
you at your word, and giving you the whole 
" story." " What I did ? " I went to Trieste, 
then Venice — then through Treviso and Bas- 
sano to the mountains, delicious Asolo, all my 
places and castles, you will see. Then to Vi- 
cenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to 
Verona, Trent, Innspruck (the Tyrol), Mu- 
nich, Salzburg in Franconia, Frankfort and 
Mayence ; down the Rhine to Cologne, then 
to Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege, and Antwerp ; then 
home. Shall you come to town, anywhere 
near town, soon ? I shall be off again as soon 
as my book is out, whenever that will be. 

I never read that book of Miss Martineau's, 
so can't understand what you mean. Mac- 
ready is looking well ; I just saw him the 
other day for a minute after the play; his 
Kitely was Kitely — superb from his flat cap 



SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILS. 143 

down to his shining shoes. I saw very few 
Italians, " to know/' that is. Those I did see 
I liked. Your friend Pepoii has been lectur- 
ing here, has he not ? 

I shall be vexed if you don't write soon, a 
long Elstree letter. What are you doing, writ- 
ing — drawing ? Ever yours truly, 

R. B. 

To Miss Ha worth, 

Barham Lodge, Elstree. 

Miss Browning's account of this experience, 
supplied from memory of her brother's letters 
and conversations, contains some vivid supple- 
mentary details. The drifting away of the 
wreck put probably no effective distance be- 
tween it and the ship ; hence the necessity of 
'' sailing away " from it. 

" Of the dead pirates, one had his hands 
clasped as if praying ; another, a severe gash 
in his head. The captain burnt disinfectants 
and blew gunpowder, before venturing on 
board, but even then, he, a powerful man, 
turned very sick with the smell and sight. 
They stayed one whole day by the side, but 



144 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the sailors, in spite of orders, began to plun- 
der the cigars, etc. The captain said privately 
to Robert, ^I cannot restrain my men, and 
they will bring the plague into our ship, so I 
mean quietly in the night to sail away/ Rob- 
ert took two cutlasses and a dagger ; they 
were of the coarsest workmanship, intended 
for use. At the end of one of the sheaths 
was a heavy bullet, so that it could be used 
as a sling. The day after, to their great re- 
hef, a heavy rain fell and cleansed the ship. 
Captain Davidson reported the sight of the 
wreck and its condition as soon as he arrived 
at Trieste." 

Miss Browning also relates that the weather 
was stormy in the Bay of Biscay, and for the 
first fortnight her brother suffered terribly. 
The captain supported him on to the deck as 
they passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, 
that he might not lose the sight. He recov- 
ered, as we know, sufficiently to write " How 
they brought the Good News from Ghent to 
Aix ; " but we can imagine in what revulsion 
of feeling towards firm land and healthy mo- 



A FRIENDLY PARTING. 145 

tion this dream of a headlong gallop was born 
in him. The poem was penciled on the cover 
of Bartoli's " De' Simboli trasportati al Mo- 
rale," a favorite book and constant companion 
of his ; and, in spite of perfect effacement as 
far as the sense goes, the pencil dints are still 
visible. The little poem "Home Thoughts 
from the Sea " was written at the same time, 
and in the same manner. 

By the time they reached Trieste, the cap- 
tain, a rough north-countryman, had become 
so attached to Mr. Browning that he offered 
him a free passage to Constantinople ; and 
after they had parted, carefully preserved, by 
way of remembrance, a pair of very old gloves 
worn by him on deck. Mr. Browning might, 
on such an occasion, have dispensed with 
gloves altogether ; but it was one of his pecu- 
liarities that he could never endure to be out 
of doors with uncovered hands. The captain 
also showed his friendly feeling on his return 
to England by bringing to Miss Browning, 
whom he had heard of through her brother, a 
present of six bottles of attar of roses. 



146 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The inspirations of Asolo and Venice ap- 
pear in " Pippa Passes " and " In a Gondola ; " 
but the latter poem showed, to Mr. Browning's 
subsequent vexation, that Venice had been 
imperfectly seen; and the magnetism w^hich 
Asolo was to exercise upon him only fully 
asserted itself at a much later time. 

A second letter to Miss Haworth is un- 
dated, but may have been written at any pe- 
riod of this or the ensuing year. 

" I have received, a couple of weeks since, 
a present — an album large and gaping, and 
as Gibber's Richard says of the ^fair Eliza- 
beth : ' ' My heart is empty — she shall fill 
it ' — so say I (impudently ?) of my grand 
trouble-table, which holds a sketch or two by 
my fine fellow Monclar, one lithograph — his 
own face of faces, — ' all the rest was ame- 
thyst.' F. H. everywhere ! not a soul beside 
' in the crystal silence there,' and it locks, 
this album ; now, don't shower drawings on 
M., who has so many advantages over me as 
it is : or at least don't bid me of all others 
say what he is to have. 



OBLIGATIONS TO MR. FOX. 147 

^^ The ' Master ' is somebody you don't 
know, W. J. Fox, a magnificent and poetical 
nature, who used to write in reviews when I 
was a boy, and to whom my verses, a bookf ulp 
written at the ripe age of twelve and thirteen^ 
were shown : which verses he praised not a 
little ; which praise comforted me not a little. 
Then I lost sight of him for years and years ; 
then I pubHshed anonymously a Httle poem, 
which he, to my inexpressible delight, praised 
and expounded in a gallant article in a maga- 
zine of which he was the editor ; then I found 
him out again ; he got a publisher for ' Par- 
acelsus ' (I read it to him in manuscript) and 
is in short ' my literary father.' Pretty nearly 
the same thing did he for Miss Martineau, as 
she has said somewhere. God knows I forget 
what the ^ talk,' table-talk was about — I 
think she must have told you the results of 
the whole day we spent tete-a-tete at Ascot, 
and that day's, the dinner-day's morning at 
Elstree and St. Albans. She is to give me 
advice about my worldly concerns, and not 
before I need it ! 



148 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" I cannot say or sing the pleasure your 
way of writing gives me — do go on, and tell 
me all sorts of things, ' the story ' for a begin- 
ning ; but your moralizings on ' your age ' 
and the rest, are — now what are they ? not 
to be reasoned on, disputed, laughed at, 
grieved about : they are ' Fanny's crotchets/ 
I thank thee, Jew(Ha), for teaching me that 
word. 

" I don't know that I shall leave town for a 
month : my friend Monclar looks piteous when 
I talk of such an event. I can't bear to leave 
him ; he is to take my portrait to-day (a fa- 
mous one he has taken !) and very like he 
engages it shall be. I am going to town for 
the purpose. . . . 

" Now, then, do something for me, and see if 

I '11 ask Miss M to help you ! I am going 

to begin the finishing ' Sordello ' — and to 
begin thinking a Tragedy (an Historical one, 
so I shall want heaps of criticisms on ' Straf- 
ford '), and I want to have another tragedy in 
prospect, I write best so provided : I had 
chosen a splendid subject for it, when I 



MISS HA WORTH CONSULTED. 149 

learned that a magazine for next, this, month, 
will have a scene founded on my story ; vul- 
garizing or doing no good to it : and I ac- 
cordingly throw it up. I want a subject of 
the most wild and passionate love, to contrast 
with the one I mean to have ready in a short 
time. I have many half-conceptions, floating 
fancies : give me your notion of a thorough 
self-devotement, self -forgetting ; should it be 
a woman who loves thus, or a man ? What 
circumstances will best draw out, set forth, this 
feeling ? " . . . 

The tragedies in question were to be " King 
Victor and King Charles," and " The Return 
of the Druses." 

This letter affords a curious insight into 
Mr. Browning's mode of work ; it is also very 
significant of the small place which love had 
hitherto occupied in his life. It was evident, 
from his appeal to Miss Haworth's " notion " 
on the subject, that he had as yet no expe- 
rience, even imaginary, of a genuine passion, 
whether in woman or man. The experience 
was still distant from him in point of time. 



150 ROBERT BROWNING. 

In circumstance he was nearer to it than he 
knew ; for it was in 1839 that he became ac- 
quainted with Mr. Kenyon. 

When dining one day at Serjeant Tal- 
fourd's, he was accosted by a pleasant elderly 
man, who, having, we conclude, heard who he 
was, asked leave to address to him a few 
questions : " Was his father's name Robert ? 
had he gone to school at the Rev. Mr. Bell's 
at Cheshunt, and was he still alive ? " On re- 
ceiving af&rmative answers, he went on to say 
that Mr. Browning and he had been great 
chums at school, and though they had lost 
sight of each other in after-life, he had never 
forgotten his old playmate, but even alluded 
to him in a little book which he had published 
a few years before.^ 

The next morning the poet asked his father 
if he remembered a schoolfellow named John 
Kenyon. He replied, " Certainly ! This is 
his face," and sketched a boy's head, in which 

1 The volume is entitled Rhymed Plea for Tolerance. 
(1833), and contains a reference to Mr. Kenyon's schooldays, 
and to the classic fights which Mr. Browning had instituted. 



MEETING WITH MR. KENYON. 151 

his son at once recognized that of the grown 
man. The acquaintance was renewed, and 
Mr. Kenyon proved ever afterwards a warm 
friend. Mr. Browning wrote of him, in a 
letter to Professor Knight of St. Andrews, 
January 10, 1884 : " He was one of the best 
of human beings, with a general sympathy for 
excellence of every kind. He enjoyed the 
friendship of Wordsworth, of Southey, of 
Landor, and, in later days, was intimate with 
most of my contemporaries of eminence." It 
was at Mr. Kenyon's house that the poet saw 
most of Wordsworth, who always stayed there 
when he came to town. 

In 1840 " Sordello " appeared. It was, rel- 
atively to its length, by far the slowest in 
preparation of Mr. Browning's poems. This 
seemed, indeed, a condition of its peculiar 
character. It had lain much deeper in the 
author's mind than the various sHghter works 
which were thrown off in the course of its 
inception. We know from the preface to 
" Strafford " that it must have been besfun 
soon after " Paracelsus." Its plan may have 



152 ROBERT BROWNING. 

belonged to a still earlier date; for it con- 
nects itself with " Pauline " as the history of 
a poetic soul ; with both the earlier poems, as 
the manifestation of the self-conscious spirit- 
ual ambitions which were involved in that 
history. This first imaginative mood was also 
outgrowing itself in the very act of self-ex- 
pression ; for the tragedies written before the 
conclusion of " Sordello " impress us as the 
product of a different mental state, — as the 
work of a more balanced imagination and a 
more mature mind. 

It would be interesting to learn how Mr. 
Browning's typical poet became embodied in 
this mediaeval form : whether the half -mythi- 
cal character of the real Sordello presented 
him as a fitting subject for imaginative psy- 
chological treatment, or whether the circum- 
stances among which he moved seemed the 
best adapted to the development of the in- 
tended type. The inspiration may have come 
through the study of Dante, and his testimony 
to the creative influence of Sordello on their 
mother-tongue. That period of Italian his- 



SORDELLO. 153 

tory must also have assumed, if it did not al- 
ready possess, a great charm for Mr. Brown- 
ing's fancy, since he studied no less than 
thirty works upon it, which were to contribute 
little more to his dramatic picture than what 
he calls " decoration " or " background." But 
the one guide which he has given us to the 
reading of the poem is his assertion that its 
historical circumstance is only to be regarded 
as background ; and the extent to which he 
identified himself with the figure of Sordello 
has been proved by his continued belief that 
its prominence was throughout maintained. 
He could still declare, so late as 1863, in his 
preface to the reprint of the work, that his 
stress in writing^ it had lain on the incidents 
in the development of a soid, little else being, 
to his mind, worth study. I cannot, there- 
fore, help thinking that recent investigations 
of the life and character of the actual poet, 
however in themselves praiseworthy and in- 
teresting, have been often, in some degree, a 
mistake ; because, directly or indirectly, they 
referred Mr. Brownino's Sordello to an his- 



154 ROBERT BROWNING. 

torical reality, which his author had grasped, 
as far as was then possible, but to which he 
was never intended to conform. 

Sordello's story does exhibit the develop- 
ment of a soul ; or, rather, the sudden awak-^ 
ening of a seK-regarding nature to the claims 
of other men, — the sudden, though slowly 
prepared, expansion of the narrower into the 
larger self, the selfish into the sympathetic 
existence 5 and this takes place in accordance 
with Mr. Browning's here expressed belief 
that poetry is the appointed vehicle for all 
lasting truths ; that the true poet must be 
their exponent. The work is thus obviously, 
in point of moral utterance, an advance on 
" Pauline." Its metaphysics are, also, more 
distinctly formulated than those of either 
'' Pauline " or " Paracelsus ; " and the fre- 
quent use of the term Will in its metaphysical 
sense so strongly points to German associa- 
tions that it is difiicult to realize their ab- 
sence, then and always, from Mr. Browning's 
mind. But he was emphatic in his assurance 
that he knew neither the German philosophers 



GOTHIC RICHNESS OF DETAIL, 15G 

nor their reflection in Coleridge, who would 
have seemed a likely medium between them 
and him. Miss Martineau once said to him 
that he had no need to study German thought^ 
since his mind was German enough — by 
which she possibly meant too German — al- 
ready. 

The poem also impresses us by a Gothic 
richness of detail/ the picturesque counterpart 
of its intricacy of thought, and, perhaps for 
this very reason, never so fully displayed in 
any subsequent work. Mr. Browning's gen- 
uinely modest attitude towards it could not 
preclude the consciousness of the many imagi- 
native beauties which its unpopular character 
had served to conceal ; and he was glad to 
find, some years ago, that " Sordello " was 
represented in a collection of descriptive pas- 
sages which a friend of his was proposing to 

1 The term Gothic has been applied to Mr. Browning's 
work, I believe, by Mr. James Thomson, in writing of The 
Ring and the Book, and I do not like to use it without say- 
ing so. But it is one of those whicli must have spontane- 
ously suggested themselves to many other of Mr. Browning's 
readers. 



156 ROBERT BROWNING. 

make. " There is a great deal of that in it," 
he said, " and it has always been overlooked." 

It was unfortunate that new difficulties of 
style should have added themselves on this 
occasion to those of subject and treatment ^ 
and the reason of it is not generally known » 
Mr. John Sterling had made some comments 
on the wording of " Paracelsus ; " and Miss 
Caroline Fox, then quite a young woman, re- 
peated them, with additions, to Miss Ha- 
worth, who, in her turn, communicated them 
to Mr. Browning, but without making quite 
clear to him the source from which they 
sprang. He took the criticism much more 
seriously than it deserved, and condensed the 
language of this his next important publica- 
tion into what was nearly its present form. 

In leaving " Sordello " we emerge from the 
self-conscious stage of Mr. Browning's ima- 
gination, and his work ceases to be autobio- 
graphic in the sense in which, perhaps errone- 
ously, we have hitherto felt it to be. " Festus " 
and " Salinguerra " have already given promise 
of the world of " Men and Women " into 



''PIPPA PASSES." 157 

which he will now conduct us. They will be 
inspired by every variety of conscious motive, 
but never again by the old (real or imagined) 
self-centred, self-directing Will. We have, 
indeed, already lost the sense of disparity be- 
tween the man and the poet ; for the Brown- 
ing of " Sordello " was growing older, while 
the defects of the poem were in many respects 
those of youth. In " Pippa Passes," pub- 
lished one year later, the poet and the man 
show themselves full-grown. Each has entered 
on the inheritance of the other. 

Neither the imagination nor the passion of 
what Mr. Gosse so fitly calls this " lyrical 
masque " ^ gives much scope for tenderness ; 
but the quality of humor is displayed in it for 
the first time ; as also a strongly marked phi- 
losophy of life — or more properly, of associa- 
tion — from which its idea and development 
are derived. In spite, however, of these evi- 
dences of general maturity, Mr. Browning 
was still sometimes boyish in personal inter- 

^ These words, and a subsequent paragraph, are quoted 
from Mr. Gosse's Personalia. 



158 ROBERT BROWNING. 

course, if we may judge from a letter to Miss 
Flower written at about the same time. 

Monday night, March 9 (? 1841). 

My dear Miss Flower, — I have this 
moment received your very kind note — of 
course I understand your objections. How 
else ? But they are somewhat lightened al- 
ready (confess — nay " confess " is vile — you 
will be rejoiced to holla from the house-top) 
— will go on, or rather go off, lightening, and 
will be — oh, where will they be half a dozen 
years hence ? 

Meantime praise what you can praise, do 
me all the good you can, you and Mr. Fox 
(as if you will not !), for I have a head full 
of projects — mean to song- write, play-write 
forthwith, — and, believe me, dear Miss 
Flower, 

Yours ever faithfully, 

Robert Browning. 

By the way, you speak of " Pippa " — could 
we not make some arrangement about it ? The 
lyrics want your music — five or six in all — 



A SATIRICAL POEM. 159 

ho^ say you ? When these three plays are 
out I hope to build a huge Ode — but "all 
goeth by God's Will." 

The loyal Alfred Domett now appears on 
the scene with a satirical poem, inspired by an 
impertinent criticism on his friend. I give its 
first two verses : — 

ON A CERTAIN CRITIQUE ON "PIPPA PASSES." 

{Query — Passes what? — the critic's comprehension.') 

Ho ! every one that by the nose is led, 
Automatons of which the world is full, 
Ye myriad bodies, each without a head. 
That dangle from a critic's brainless skull, 
Come, hearken to a deep discovery made, 
A mighty truth now wondrously displayed. 

A black squat beetle, vigorous for his size. 

Pushing tail-first by every road that 's wrong 

The dung-ball of his dirty thoughts along 

riis tiny sphere of groveling sympathies — 

Has knocked himself full-butt, with blundering trouble, 

Against a mountain he can neither double 

Nor ever hope to scale. So like a free. 

Pert, self-conceited scarabseus, he 

Takes it into his horny head to swear 

There 's no such thing- as any mountain there. 



160 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The writer lived to do better things from a 
literary point of view ; but these lines have 
a fine ring of youthful indignation which 
must have made them a welcome tribute to 
friendship. 

There seems to have been little respectful 
criticism of " Pippa Passes ; " it is less sur- 
prising that there should have been very little 
of " Sordello." Mr. Browning, it is true, re- 
tained a limited number of earnest apprecia- 
tors, foremost of whom was the writer of an 
admirable notice of these two works, quoted 
from an " Eclectic Review " of 1847, in Dr. 
Furnivall's "Bibliography." I am also told 
that the series of poems which was next to 
appear was enthusiastically greeted by some 
poets and painters of the pre-Raphaelite 
school ; but he was now entering on a period 
of general neglect, which covered nearly 
twenty years of his life, and much that has 
since become most deservedly popular in his 
work. 

" Pippa Passes " had appeared as the first 
installment of " Bells and Pomegranates/' the 



A CHEAP EDITION PROPOSED. 161 

history of which I give in Mr. Gosse's words. 
This poem, and the two tragedies, " King 
Victor and King Charles " and ^' The Return 
of the Druses," — first christened " Mansoor, 
the Hierophant," — were lying idle in Mr. 
Browning's desk. He had not found, per- 
haps not very vigorously sought, a publisher 
for them. 

" One day, as the poet was discussing the 
matter with Mr. Edward Moxon, the publisher, 
the latter remarked that at that time he was 
bringing out some editions of the old Eliza- 
bethan dramatists in a comparatively cheap 
form, and that if Mr. Browning would con- 
sent to print his poems as pamphlets, using 
this cheap type, the expense would be very 
inconsiderable. The poet jumped at the idea, 
and it was agreed that each poem should 
form a separate brochure of just one sheet — 
sixteen pages in double columns — the entire 
cost of which should not exceed twelve or fif- 
teen pounds. In this fashion began the cele- 
brated series of " Bells and Pomegranates," 
eight numbers of which, a perfect treasury of 



162 ROBERT BROWNING. 

fine poetry, came out successively between 
1841 and 1846. " Pippa Passes " led the 
way, and was priced first at sixpence ; then, 
the sale being inconsiderable, at a shilling, 
which greatly encouraged the sale ; and so, 
slowly, up to half-a-crown, at which the price 
of each number finally rested.'* 

Mr. Brow^ning's hopes and intentions with 
respect to this series are announced in the fol- 
lowing preface to " Pippa Passes," of which, 
in later editions, only the dedicatory words 
appear : — 

"Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, 
about which the chief matter I much care to 
recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of good- 
natured people applauded it : — ever since, I 
have been desirous of doing something in the 
same way that should better reward their at- 
tention. What follows I mean for the first 
of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out 
at intervals, and I amuse myself by fancying 
that the cheap mode in which they appear 
will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience 
again. Of course, such a work must go on 



PREFACE TO " PIPPA PASSES." 163 

no longer than it is liked ; and to provide 
against a certain and but too possible contin- 
gency, let me hasten to say now — what, if I 
were sure of success, I would try to say cir° 
cumstantially enough at the close — that I 
dedicate my best intentions most admiringly 
to the author of ', Ion ' — most affectionately 
to Serjeant Talfourd." 

A necessary explanation of the general title 
was reserved for the last number : and does 
something towards justifying the popular im- 
pression that Mr. Browning exacted a large 
measure of literary insight from his readers. 

" Here ends my first series of ' Bells and 
Pomegranates : ' and I take the opportunity 
of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only 
meant by that title to indicate an endeavor 
towards something like an alternation, or mix- 
ture, of music with discoursing, sound with 
sense, poetry with thought ; which looks too 
ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was 
preferred. It is little to the purpose, that 
such is actually one of the most familiar of 
the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) accepta- 



164 ROBERT BROWNING. 

tions of the phrase ; because I confess that, 
letting authority alone, I supposed the bare 
wordsj in such juxtaposition, would suffi- 
ciently convey the desired meaning. ' Faith 
and good works ' is another fancy, for in- 
stance, and perhaps no easier to arrive at ; yet 
Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand 
of Dante, and Raffaelle crowned his Theology 
(in the Caonera della Segnatura) with blos- 
soms of the same ; as if- the Bellari and Va- 
sari would be sure to come after, and explain 
that it was merely ' simholo delle buofie 
opere — il qual Podio granato fii pero 
usato nelle vesti del Pontejice ap2Jresso gli 
Ehrei: " 

The Dramas and Poems contained in the 
eight numbers of " Bells and Pomegranates" 
were : — 

I. Pippa Passes. 1841. 
II. King Victor and King Charles. 1842. 
III. Dramatic Lyrics. 1842. 

Cavalier Tunes ; I. Marching Along ; IL 
Give a Rouse ; III. My Wife Gertrude. 
[" Boot and Saddle."] 



''BELLS AND POMEGRANATES:* 165 

Italy and France ; I. Italy ; II. France. 
Camp and Cloister ; I. Camp {French) ; 

II. Cloister {Spanish), 
In a Gondola. 
Artemis Prologizes. 
Waring ; I., II. 
Queen Worship ; I. Rudel and the Lady 

of Tripoli ; II. Cristina. 
Madhouse Cells ; I. [Johannes Agricola.] 

II. [Porphyria.] 
Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 

1842. 
The Pied Piper of Hamelin ; a Child's 

Story. 
IV. The Return of the Druses. A Tragedy, in 

Five Acts. 1843. 
V. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. A Tragedy, in 
Three Acts. 1843. [Second Edition, 
same year.] 
VI. Colombe's Birthday. A Play, in Five Acts. 

1844. 
VII. Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. 1845. 

How they brought the Good News from 

Ghent to Aix. (16—.) 
Pictor Ignotus. {Florence, 15 — .) 
Italy in England. 

England in Italy. {Piano di Sorrento.) 
The Lost Leader. 



166 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The Lost Mistress. 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad. 

The Tomb at St. Praxed's. {Rovie, 15 — .) 

Garden Fancies ; I. The Flower's Name ; 

II. Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis. 
France and Spain; I. The Laboratory 

(Ancien Regime) ; II. Spain — The 

Confessional. 
The Flight of the Duchess. 
Earth's Immortalities. 
Song. ("Nay but you, who do not love 

her.") 
The Boy and the Angel. 
Night and Morning ; I. Night ; II. 

Morning. 
Claret and Tokay. 
Saul. (Part I.) 
Time's Revenges. 

The Glove. (Peter Roistsard loquitur.) 
VIII. and last. Luria ; and A Soul's Tragedy. 1846. 

This publication has seemed entitled to a 
detailed notice, because it is practically ex- 
tinct, and because its nature and circumstance 
confer on it a biographical interest not pos- 
sessed by any subsequent issue of Mr. Brown- 
ing's works. The dramas and poems of which 



A FEW POEMS SIGNIFICANT. 167 

it is composed belong to that more mature 
period of the author's life, in which the analy- 
sis of his work ceases to form a necessary 
part of his history. Some few of them, how- 
ever, are significant to it ; and this is notably 
the case with " A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." 



CHAPTER VIIL 

1841-1844. 

«« A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." —Letters to Mr. Frank Hill ; 
Lady Martin. — Charles Dickens. — Other Dramas and 
Minor Poems. — Letters to Miss Lee ; Miss Haworth ; 
Miss Flower. — Second Italian Journey ; Naples. — E. J. 
Trelawney. — Stendhal. 

" A Blot in the 'Scutcheon " was written 
for Macready, who meant to perform the 
principal part ; and we may conclude that the 
appeal for it was urgent, since it was com- 
posed in the space of four or five days. Ma- 
cready's journals must have contained a fuller 
reference to both the play and its performance 
(at Drury Lane, February, 1843) than appears 
in published form ; but considerable irritation 
had arisen between him and Mr. Browning, 
and he possibly wrote something which his 
editor. Sir Frederick Pollock, as the friend of 
both, thought it best to omit. What occurred 



"^ BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON." 169 

on this occasion has been told in some detail 
by Mr. Gosse, and would not need repeating 
if the question were only of re-telling it on 
the same authority, in another person's words ; 
but, through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. 
Frank Hill, I am able to give Mr. Browning's 
direct statement of the case, as also his ex- 
pressed judgment upon it. The statement 
was made more than forty years later than the 
events to which it refers, but will, neverthe- 
less, be best given in its direct connection with 
them. 

The merits, or demerits, of " A Blot in the 
'Scutcheon " had been freshly brought under 
discussion by its performance in London 
through the action of the Browning Society, 
and in Washington by Mr. Lawrence Barrett ; 
and it became the subject of a paragraph in 
one of the theatrical articles prepared for the 
" Daily News." Mr. Hill was then editor of 
the paper, and when the article came to him 
for revision, he thought it right to submit to 
Mr. Browning the passages devoted to his 
tragedy, which embodied some then prevail- 



170 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing, but, he strongly suspected, erroneous im- 
pressions concerning it. The results of this 
kind and courteous proceeding appear in the 
following letter. 

19 Warwick Crescent, December 15, 1884. 

My dear Mr. Hill, — It was kind and 
considerate of you to suppress the paragraph 
which you send me, — and of which the pub- 
lication would have been unpleasant for rea- 
sons quite other than as regarding my own 
work, — which exists to defend or accuse it- 
self. You will judge of the true reasons 
when I tell you the facts — so much of them 
as contradicts the statements of your critic 
— who, I suppose, has received a stimulus 
from the notice, in an American paper which 
arrived last week, of Mr. Lawrence Barrett's 
intention " shortly to produce the play " in 
New York — and subsequently in London : so 
that " the failure " of forty-one years ago 
might be duly influential at present — or two 
years hence, perhaps. The ^' mere amateurs " 
are no high game. 



LETTER TO MR. FRANK HILL. 171 

Macready received and accepted the play, 
while he was engaged at the Haymarket, and 
retained it for Drury Lane, of which I was 
iofnorant that he was about to become the 
manager : he accepted it " at the instigation " 
of nobody, — and Charles Dickens was not in 
England when he did so : it was read to him 
after his return, by Forster — and the glowing 
letter which contains his opinion of it, although 
directed by him to be shown to myself^ was 
never heard of nor seen by me till printed in 
Forster' s book some thirty years after. SVhen 
the Drury Lane season began, Macready in- 
formed me that he should act the play when 
he had brought out two others — " The Patri- 
cian's Daughter," and " Plighted Troth : " 
having done so, he wrote to me that the 
former had been unsuccessful in money-draw- 
ing, and the latter had " smashed his arrange- 
ments altogether : " but he would still produce 
my play. I had — in my ignorance of certain 
symptoms better understood by Macready's 
professional acquaintances — I had no notion 
that it was a proper thing, in such a case, to 



172 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" release him from his promise ; " on the con- 
trary, I should have fancied that such a pro- 
posal was offensive. Soon after, Macready 
begged that I would call on him ; he said the 
play had been read to the actors the day be- 
fore, " and laughed at from beginning to 
end : " on my speaking my mind about this, 
he explained that the reading had been done 
by the Prompter, a grotesque person with a 
red nose and wooden leg, ill at ease in the 
love scenes, and that he would himself make 
amends by leading the play next morning — 
which he did^ and very adequately — but ap- 
prised me that, in consequence of the state 
of his mind, harassed by business and various 
trouble, the principal character must be taken 
by Mr. Phelps ; and again I failed to under- 
stand, — what Forster subsequently assured me 
was plain as the sun at noonday, — that to 
allow at Macready' s Theatre any other than 
Macready to play the principal part in a new 
piece was suicidal, — and really believed I was 
meeting his exigencies by accepting the substi- 
tution. At the rehearsal, Macready announced 



PHELPS DECIDED UPON. 173 

that Mr. Phelps was ill, and that he himself 
would read the part : on the third rehearsal, 
Mr. Phelps appeared for the first time, and sat 
in a chair while Macready more than read, 
rehearsed the part. The next morning Mr^ 
Phelps waylaid me at the stage-door to say, 
with much emotion, that it never was intended 
that he should be instrumental in the success 
of a new tragedy, and that Macready would 
play Tresham on the ground that himself, 
Phelps, was unable to do so. He added that 
he could not expect me to waive such an advan- 
tage, — but that, if I were prepared to waive 
it, " he would take ether, sit up all night, and 
have the words in his memory by next day." 
I bade him follow me to the green-room, and 
hear what I decided upon — which was that 
as Macready had given him the part, he should 
keep it : this was on a Thursday ; he rehearsed 
on Friday and Saturday, — the play being 
acted the same evening, — of the fifth day 
after the " reading " hy Macready. Ma- 
cready at once wished to reduce the impor- 
tance of the ''play" — as he styled it in the 



174 ROBERT BROWNING. 

bills, — tried to leave out so much of the text, 
that I baffled him by getting it printed in 
four-and-twenty hours, by Moxon's assistance. 
He wanted me to call it " The Sister " ! — and 
I have before me, while I write, the stage- 
acting copy, with two hnes of his own inser- 
tion to avoid the tragical ending — Tresham 
was to announce his intention of going into a 
monastery ! all this, to keep up the belief that 
Macready, and Macready alone, could produce 
a veritable "tragedy," unproduced before. 
Not a shilling was spent on scenery or dresses 
— and a striking scene which had been used 
for the " Patrician's Daughter " did duty a 
second time. If your critic considers this 
treatment of the play an instance of " the 
failure of powerful and experienced actors " to 
insure its success, — I can only say that my 
own opinion was shown by at once break- 
ing off a friendship of many years — a friend- 
ship which had a right to be plainly and 
simply told that the play I had contributed 
as a proof of it would, through a change of 
circumstances, no longer be to my friend's 



OPEN TO PRAISE OR BLAME. 175 

advantage, — all I could possibly care for. 
Only recently, when by the publication of 
Macready's journals the extent of his pecuni- 
ary embarrassments at that time was made 
known, could I in a measure understand his 
motives for such conduct — and less than ever 
understand why he so strangely disguised and 
disfigured them. If " applause " means suc- 
cess, the play thus maimed and maltreated 
was successful enough : it " made way " for 
Macready's own Benefit, and the theatre closed 
a fortnight after. 

Having kept silence for all these years, in 
spite of repeated explanations, in the style of 
your critic's, that the play " failed in spite of 
the best endeavors," etc., I hardly wish to 
revive a very painful matter : on the other 
hand, — as I have said, my play subsists, and 
is as open to praise or blame as it was forty- 
one years ago : is it necessary to search out 
what somebody or other, — not improbably a 
jealous adherent of Macready, " the only or- 
ganizer of theatrical victories," chose to say 
on the subject ? If the characters are " abhor- 



176 ROBERT BROWNING. 

rent " and " inscrutable " — and the language 
conformable, — they were so when Dickens 
pronounced upon them, and will be so when- 
ever the critic pleases to reconsider them — 
which, if he ever has an opportunity of doing; 
apart from the printed copy, I can assure you 
is through no motion of mine. This particu° 
lar experience was sufficient : but the Play is 
out of my power now ; though amateurs and 
actors may do what they please. 

Of course, this being the true story, I 
should desire that it were told thus and no 
otherwise, if it must be told at all : but not as 
a statement of mine, — the substance of it 
has been partly stated already by more than 
one qualified person, and if I have been will- 
ing to let the poor matter drop, surely there is 
no need that it should be gone into now when 
Macready and his Athengeum upholder are no 
longer able to speak for themselves : this is 
just a word to you, dear Mr. Hill, and may be 
brought under the notice of your critic if you 
think proper — but only for the facts — not 
as a communication for the public. 



VICISSITUDES OF THE PLAY. 177 

Yes, thank you, I am in full health, as you 
wish — and I wish you and Mrs. Hill, I assure 
you, all the good appropriate to the season. 
My sister has completely recovered from her 
illness, and is grateful for your inquiries. 

With best regards to Mrs. Hill, and an 
apology for this long letter, which, however, 
— when once induced to write it, — I could 
not well shorten, — believe me. 
Yours truly ever, 

Robert Browning. 

I well remember Mr. Browning's telhng me 
how, when he returned to the green-room, on 
that critical day, he drove his hat more firmly 
on to his head, and said to Macready, " I beg 
pardon, sir, but you have given the part to 
Mr. Phelps, and I am satisfied that he should 
act it ; " and how Macready, on hearing this, 
crushed up the MS., and flung it on to the 
ground. He also admitted that his own man- 
ner had been provocative ; but he was indig- 
nant at what he deemed the unjust treatment 
which Mr. Phelps had received. The occasion 
of the next letter speaks for itsel£ 



178 ROBERT BROWNING. 

December 21, 1884. 

My dear Mr. Hill, — Your goodness 
must extend to letting me have the last word 
— one of sincere thanks. You cannot sup- 
pose I doubted for a moment of a goodwill 
which I have had abundant proof of. I only 
took the occasion your considerate letter gave 
me, to tell the simple truth which my forty 
years' silence is a sign I would only tell on 
compulsion. I never thought your critic had 
any less generous motive for alluding to the 
performance as he did than that which he pro- 
fesses : he doubtless heard the account of the 
matter which Macready and his intimates gave 
currency to at the time ; and which, being 
confined for a while to their limited number, 
I never chose to notice. But of late years I 
have got to read — not merely hear — of the 
play's failure, " which all the efforts of my 
friend the great actor could not avert ; " and 
the nonsense of this untruth gets hard to 
bear. I told you the principal facts in the 
letter I very hastily wrote : I could, had it 
been worth while, corroborate them by others 



"^ COMPLETE SUCCESS." 179 

in plenty, and refer to the living witnesses — • 
Lady Martin, Mrs. Stirling, and (I believe) 
Mr. Anderson : it was solely through the 
admirable loyalty of the two former that . . c 
a play . . . deprived of every advantage, in 
the way of scenery, dresses, and rehearsing — 
proved — what Macready himself declared it 
to be — "a complete success." So he sent a 
servant to tell me, " in case there was a call 
for the author at the end of the act " — to 
which I replied that the author had been too 
sick and sorry at the whole treatment of his 
play to do any such thing. Such a call there 
truly ivas, and Mr. Anderson had to come 
forward and " beg the author to come forward 
if he were in the house — a circumstance of 
which he was not aware : " whereat the author 
laughed at him from a box just opposite. . . . 
I would submit to anybody drawing a conclu- 
sion from one or two facts past contradiction, 
whether that play could have thoroughly failed 
which was not only not withdrawn at once but 
acted three nights in the same week, and, years 
afterwards, reproduced in his own theatre, 



180 ROBERT BROWNING. 

during my absence in Italy, by Mr. Phelps — 
the person most completely aware of the unto- 
ward circumstances which stood originally in 
the way of success. Why not inquire how it 
happens that, this second time, there was no 
doubt of the play's doing as w^ell as plays 
ordinarily do ? for those were not the days of 

a " run." 
• •••••••• 

. . . This " last word " has indeed been an 
Aristophanic one of fifty syllables : but I have 
spoken it, relieved myself, and commend all 
that concerns me to the approved and valued 
friend of whom I am proud to account myself 
in corresponding friendship, 

His truly ever, 

Robert Browning. 

Mr. Browning also alludes to Mr. Phelps's 
acting as not only not having been detrimental 
to the play, but having helped to save it, in 
the conspiracy of circumstances which seemed 
to invoke its failure. This was a mistake, 
since Macready had been anxious to resume 



HIS FEELING TOWARDS MACREADY. 181 

the part, and would have saved it, to say the 
least, more thoroughly. It must, however, be 
remembered that the irritation which these 
letters express was due much less to the na- 
ture of the facts recorded in them than to the 
manner in which they had been brought be- 
fore Mr. Browning's mind. Writing on the 
subject to Lady Martin in February, 1881, he 
had spoken very temperately of Macready's 
treatment of his play, while deprecating the 
injustice towards his own friendship which its 
want of frankness involved : and many years 
before this, the touch of a common sorrow 
had caused the old feeling, at least momen- 
tarily, to well up again. The two met for the 
first time after these occurrences when Mr. 
Browning had returned, a widower, from 
Italy. Mr. Macready, too, had recently lost 
his wife ; and Mr. Browning could only start* 
forward, grasp the hand of his old friend, and 
in a voice choked with emotion say, " Ma- 
cready ! " 

Lady Martin has spoken to me of the poet's 
attitude on the occasion of this performance 



182 ROBERT BROWNING. 

as being full of generous sympathy for those 
who were working with him, as well as of the 
natural anxiety of a young author for his own 
success. She also remains convinced that this 
sympathy led him rather to over- than to 
under-rate the support he received. She wrote 
concerning it in " Blackwood's Magazine/' 
March, 1881 : — 

" It seems but yesterday that I sat by his 
[Mr. Elton's] side in the green-room at the 
reading of Robert Browning's beautiful drama, 
' A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.' As a rule Mr. 
Macready always read the new plays. But 
owing, I suppose, to some press of business, 
the task was intrusted on this occasion to the 
head prompter, — a clever man in his way, 
but wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to 
understand, Mr. Browning's meaning. Conse- 
quently, the delicate, subtle lines were twisted, 
perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous 
in his hands. My ' cruel father ' [Mr. Elton] 
was a warm admirer of the poet. He sat 
writhing and indignant, and tried by gentle 
asides to make me see the real meaning of the 



A JUST CAUSE OF BITTERNESS. 183 

verse. But somehow the mischief proved ir- 
reparable^ for a few of the actors during the 
rehearsals chose to continue to misunderstand 
the text, and never took the interest in the 
play which they would have done had Mr. 
Macready read it." 

Looking back on the first appearance of his 
tragedy through the widening perspectives of 
nearly forty years, Mr. Browning might well 
declare as he did in the letter to Lady Martin 
to which I have just referred, that her '' per- 
fect behavior as a woman " and her " admi- 
rable playing as an actress " had been (or at 
all events were) to him " the one gratifying 
circumstance connected with it." 

He also felt it a just cause of bitterness that 
the letter from Charles Dickens,^ which con- 
veyed his almost passionate admiration of " A 
Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and was clearly writ- 
ten to Mr. Forster in order that it might be 
seen, was withheld for thirty years from his 
knowledge, and that of the public whose judg- 
ment it might so largely have influenced. Nor 

1 See Forster's Life of Dickens. 



184 ROBERT BROWMNG. 

was this the only time in the poet's life that 
fairly earned honors escaped him. 

" Colombe's Birthday " was produced in 
1853 at the Haymarket ; ^ and afterwards in 
the provinces, under the direction of Miss 
Helen Faucit, who created the principal part. 
It was again performed for the Browning So- 
ciety in 1885," and although Miss Alma Mur- 
ray, as Colombe, was almost entirely supported 
by amateurs, the result fully justified Miss 
Mary Robinson (now Madame James Darme- 
steter) in writing immediately afterwards in 
the Boston " Literary World : " ^ — 

" ' Colombe' s Birthday ' is charming on the 
boards, clearer, more direct in action, more 
full of delicate surprises than one imagines it 
in print. With a very little cutting it could 
be made an excellent acting play." 

Mr. Gosse has seen a first edition copy of it 

1 Also in 1853 or 1854 at Boston. 

2 It had been played by amateurs, members of the Brown- 
ing Society, and their friends, at the house of Mr. Joseph 
King, in January, 1882. 

3 December 12, 1885 ; quoted in Mr. Arthur Symons's In- 
troduction to the Study of Browning. 



^'COLOMBE'S birthday:' 185 

marked for acting, and alludes in his " Per- 
sonalia " to the greatly increased knowledge 
o£ the staofe which its minute directions dis- 
played. They told also of sad experience in 
the sacrifice of the poet which the play-writer 
so often exacts : since they included the pro- 
viso that unless a very good Valence could be 
found, a certain speech of his should be left 
out. That speech is very important to the 
poetic, and not less to the moral, purpose of 
the play : the triumph of unworldly affections. 
It is that in which Valence defies the plati- 
tudes so often launched against rank and 
power, and shows that these may be very 
beautiful things — in which he pleads for his 
rival, and against his own heart. He is the 
better man of the two, and Colombe has fallen 
genuinely in love with him. But the instincts 
of sovereignty are not outgrown in one day, 
however eventful, and the young duchess has 
shown herself amply endowed with them. The 
Prince's offer promised much, and it held still 
more. The time may come when she will need 
that crowning memory of her husband's un- 



186 ROBERT BROWNING. 

selfishness and truth, not to regret what she 
has done. 

" King Victor and King Charles " and 
" The Return of the Druses " are both admit- 
ted by competent judges to have good qualifi- 
cations for the stage ; and Mr. Browning 
Y/ould have preferred seeing one of these acted 
to witnessinof the revival of " Strafford " or 
" A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," from neither of 
which the best amateur performance could re- 
move the stigma of past, real or reputed, fail- 
ure ; and when once a friend belonging to the 
Browning Society told him she had been seri- 
ously occupied with the possibility of produc- 
ing the Eastern play, he assented to the idea 
with a simplicity that was almost touching : 
" It was written for the stage," he said, '^ and 
has only one scene." He knew, however, that 
the single scene was far from obviating all the 
dif&culties of the case, and that the Society, 
with its limited means, did the best it could. 

I seldom hear any allusion to a passage in 
" King Victor and King Charles " which I 
think more than rivals the famous utterance 



J 



"DRAMATIC LYRICS." 187 

of Valence, revealing as it does the same grasp 
of non-conventional truth, while its occasion 
lends itself to a far deeper recognition of the 
mystery, the frequent hopeless dilemma, of our 
moral hfe. It is that in which Polixena, the 
wife of Charles, entreats him for duty^s sake 
to retain the crown, though he will earn, by so 
doing, neither the credit of a virtuous deed 
nor the sure, persistent consciousness of hav- 
ing performed one. 

Four poems of the " Dramatic Lyrics " had 
appeared, as I have said, in the " Monthly Re- 
pository." Six of those included in the " Dra- 
matic Lyrics and Romances" were first pub- 
lished in " Hood's Magazine " from June, 
1844, to April, 1845, a month before Hood's 
death. These poems were, " The Laboratory," 
" Claret and Tokay," " Garden Fancies," " The 
Boy and the Angel," " The Tomb at St. Prax- 
ed's," and " The Flight of the Duchess." Mr. 
Hood's health had given way under stress of 
work, and Mr. Browning with other friends 
thus came forward to help him. The fact de- 
serves remembering in connection with his 



188 ROBERT BROWNING. 

subsequent unbroken rule never to write for 
magazines. He might always have made ex- 
ceptions for friendly or philanthropic objects ; 
the appearance of "Herve Kiel" in the '^Corn- 
hill Magazine," 1870, indeed proves that it 
was so. But the offer of a blank cheque 
would not have tempted him, for his own 
sake, to this concession, as he would have 
deemed it, of his integrity of literary pur- 
pose. 

" In a Gondola " grew out of a single verse 
extemporized for a picture by Maclise, in what 
circumstances we shall hear in the poet's own 
words. 

The first proof of " Artemis Prologizes " 
had the following note : — 

" I had better say perhaps that the above is 
nearly all retained of a tragedy I composed, 
much against my endeavor, while in bed with 
a fever two years ago — it went farther into 
the story of Hippolytus and Aricia ; but when 
I got well, putting only thus much down at 
once, I soon forgot the remainder." ^ 

^ When Mr. Browning gave me these supplementary de- 



MINOR POEMS. 189 

Mr. Browning would have been very angry 
with himself if he had known he ever wrote 
^'\ had better;" and the punctuation of this 
note, as well as of every other unrevised spe- 
cimen which we possess of his early writings 
helps to show by what careful study of the lit- 
erary art he must have acquired his subse- 
quent mastery of it. 

" Cristina " was addressed in fancy to the 
Spanish queen. It is to be regretted that the 
poem did not remain under its original head- 
ing of " Queen Worship : " as this gave a 
practical clue to the nature of the love de- 
scribed, and the special remoteness of its ob- 
ject. 

" The Pied Piper of Hamelin " and another 
poem were written in May, 1842, for Mr. Ma- 
cready's little eldest son, Willy, who was con- 
fined to the house by illness, and who was to 
amuse himself by illustrating the poems as 

tails for the Handbook, he spoke as if his illness had inter- 
rupted the work, not preceded its conception. The real fact 
is, I think, the more striking. 



190 ROBERT BROWNING. 

well as reading them ; ^ and the first of these, 
though not intended for publication, was 
added to the " Dramatic Lyrics," because some 
columns of that number of " Bells and Pome- 
granates " still required filling. It is perhaps 
not known that the second was " Crescentius, 
the Pope's Legate ; " now included in " Aso- 
lando." 

Mr. Browning's father had himself begun a 
rhymed story on the subject of " The Pied 
Piper ; " but left it unfinished when he discov- 
ered that his son was writing one. The frag- 
ment survives as part of a letter addressed to 
Mr. Thomas Powell, and which I have re- 
ferred to as in the possession of Mr. Dykes 
Campbell. 

" The Lost Leader " has given rise to peri- 
odical questionings continued until the pres- 
ent day, as to the person indicated in its title. 
Mr. Browning answered or anticipated them 
fifteen years ago in a letter to Miss Lee, of 

1 Miss Browning has lately found some of the illustrations, 
and the touching childish letter together with which her 
brother received them. 



LETTER TO MISS LEE. 101 

West Peckliam, Maidstone. It was his reply 
to an application in verse made to him in their 
very young days by herself and two other 
members of her family, the manner of which 
seems to have unusually pleased himo 

ViLLERS-SUR-MER, CaLVADOS, FrANCE, 

September 7, 1875. 

Dear Friends, — Your letter has made a 
round to reach me — hence the delay in reply- 
ing to it — which you will therefore pardon. 
I have been asked the question you put to me 
— though never asked so poetically and so 
pleasantly — I suppose a score of times : and 
I can only answer, with something of shame 
and contrition, that I undoubtedly had Words- 
worth in my mind — but simply as " a model ; " 
you know, an artist takes one or two striking 
traits in the features of his " model," and uses 
them to start his fancy on a flight which may 
end far enough from the good man or woman 
who happens to be " sitting " for nose and eye. 

I thought of the great Poet's abandonment 
of liberalism, at an unlucky juncture^ and no 



192 ROBERT BROWNING. 

repaying consequence that I could ever see. 
But once call my fancy-portrait Wordsworth 
— and how much more ought one to say, — 
how much more would not I have attempted 
to say ! 

There is my apology, dear friends, and your 
acceptance of it will confirm me, 
Truly yours, 

KoBERT Browning. 

Some' fragments of correspondence, not all 
very interesting, and his own allusion to an 
attack of illness, are our only record of the 
poet's general life during the interval which 
separated the publication of " Pippa Passes " 
from his second Italian journey. 

An undated letter to Miss Haworth proba- 
bly refers to the close of 1841. 

..." I am getting to love painting as I 
did once. Do you know I was a young won- 
der (as are eleven out of the dozen of us) at 
drawing ? My father had faith in me, and 
over yonder in a drawer of mine lies, I well 
know, a certain cottage and rocks in lead pen- 



LETTER TO MISS HA WORTH. 193 

cil and black currant jam-juice (paint being 
rank poison, as they said when I sucked my 
brushes) with his (my father's) note in one 
corner, ' R. B., setat. two years three months.' 
' How fast, alas, our days we spend — How 
vain they be, how soon they end ! ' I am 
going to print ' Victor,' however, by Febru- 
ary, and there is one thing not so badly painted 
in there, — oh, let me tell you. I chanced to 
call on Forster the other day, and he pressed 
me into committing verse on the instant, not 
the minute, in Maclise's behalf, who has 
WTOught a divine Venetian work, it seems, for 
the British Institution. Forster described it 
well — but I could do nothinof better than 
this wooden ware — (all the ^ properties,' as 
we say, were given, and the problem was how 
to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason) » 

" I send my heart up to thee, all my heart 

In this my singing! 
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part ; 

The very night is clinging 
Closer to Venice' streets to leave me space 

Above me, whence thy face 
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. 



194 ROBERT BROWNING. 

'^ Singing and stars and night and Venice 
streets and joyous heart are properties, do 
you please to see. And now tell me, is this 
below the average of catalogue original poe- 
try ? Tell me, — for to that end of being 
told, I write. ... I dined with dear Carlyle 
and his wife (catch me calhng people ' dear ' 
in a hurry, except in letter-beginnings !) yes- 
terday. I don't know any people like them. 
There was a son of Burns there. Major Burns, 
whom Macready knows. He sung ' Of all 
the airts,' ' John Anderson,' and another song 
of his father's." . . . 

In the course of 1842 he wrote the follow- 
ing note to Miss Flower, evidently relating 
to the publication of her " Hymns and An- 
thems : " — 

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey, 
Tuesday morning. 

Dear Miss Flower, — I am sorry for what 
must grieve Mr. Fox ; for myself, T beg him 
earnestly not to see me till his entire conve- 
nience, however pleased I shall be to receive 
the letter you promise on his part. 



LETTERS TO MISS FLOWER. 195 

And how can I thank you enough for this 
good news — all this music I shall be so 
thoroughly gratified to hear ? 
Ever yours faithfully, 

Robert Browning. 

His last letter to her was written in 1845 ; 
the subject being a concert of her own sacred 
music, which she was about to give ; and again, 
although more slightly, I anticipate the course 
of events in order to give it in its natural 
connection with the present one. Mr. Brown- 
ing was now engaged to be married, and the 
last ring of youthful levity had disappeared 
from his tone ; but neither the new happiness 
nor the new responsibility had weakened his 
interest in his boyhood's friend. Miss Flower 
must then have been slowly dying, and the 
closing words of the letter have the solemnity 
of a last farewell. 

Sunday. 

Dear Miss Flower, — I was very foolishly 
surprised at the sorrowful finical notice you 
mention : foolishly ; for, God help us, how 



196 ROBERT BROWNING, 

else is it with all critics of everything — don't 
I hear them talk and see them write ? I dare 
say he admires you as he said. 

For me, I never had another feeling than 

entire admiration for your music — entire 

admiration — I put it apart from all other 

' English music I know, and fully believe in it 

as the music we all waited for. 

Of your health I shall not trust myself to 
speak : you must know what is unspoken. I 
should have been most happy to see you if 
but for a minute — and if next Wednesday 
I might take your hand for a moment — 

But you would concede that, if it were 
right, remembering what is now very old 
friendship. 

May God bless you forever, 

(The signature has been cut off.) 

In the autumn of 1844 Mr. Browning set 
forth for Italy, taking ship, it is beheved, 
direct to Naples. Here he made the acquaint- 
ance of a young Neapolitan gentleman who 
had spent most of his life in Paris ; and they 



VISIT TO MR. TRELAWNEY. 197 

became such good friends that they proceeded 
to Rome togfether. Mr. Scotti was an invalu- 
able travehng companion, for he engaged 
their conveyance, and did all such bargaining 
in their joint interest as the habits of his 
country required. " As I write," Mr. Brown- 
ing said in a letter to his sister, " I hear him 
disputing our bill in the next room. He does 
not see why we should pay for six wax can- 
dles when we have used only two." At Rome 
they spent most of their evenings with an old 
acquaintance of Mr. Browning's, then Count- 
ess Carducci, and she pronounced Mr. Scotti 
the handsomest man she had ever seen. He 
certainly bore no appearance of being the least 
prosperous. But he blew out his brains soon 
after he and his new friend had parted ; and 
I do not think the act was ever fully accounted 
for. 

It must have been on his return journey 
that Mr. Browning went to Leghorn to see 
Edward John Trelawney, to whom he carried 
a letter of introduction. He described the 
interview long afterwards to Mr. Yal Prinsep, 



198 ROBERT BROWNING. 

but chiefly in his impressions of the cool cour- 
age which Mr. Trelawney had displayed dur- 
ing its course. A surgeon was occupied all 
the time in probing his leg for a bullet which 
had been lodged there some years before, and 
had lately made itself felt ; and he showed 
himself absolutely indifferent to the pain of 
the operation. Mr. Browning's main object 
in paying the visit had been, naturally, to 
speak with one who had known Byron and 
been the last to see Shelley alive ; but w^e only 
hear of the two poets that they formed in 
part the subject of their conversation. He 
reached England, again, we suppose, through 
Germany — since he avoided Paris as before. 

It has been asserted by persons otherwise 
well informed, that on this, if not on his pre- 
vious Italian journey, Mr. Browning became 
acquainted with Stendhal, then French Consul 
at Civita Vecchia, and that he imbibed from 
the great novelist a taste for curiosities of 
Italian family history, which ultimately led 
him in the direction of the Franceschini case. 
It is certain that he profoundly admired this 



STENDHAL. 199 

writer, and if he was not, at some time or 
other, introduced to him, it was because the 
opportunity did not occur. But there is 
abundant evidence that no introduction took 
place, and quite sufficient proof that none was 
possible. Stendhal died in Paris in March, 
1842 ; and granting that he was at Civita 
Yecchia when the poet made his earlier voy- 
age — no certainty even while he held the 
appointment — the ship cannot have touched 
there on its way to Trieste. It is also a mis- 
take to suppose that Mr. Browning was spe- 
cially interested in ancient chronicles, as such. 
This was one of the points on which he dis- 
tinctly differed from his father. He took his 
dramatic subjects wherever he found them, 
and any historical research which they ulti- 
mately involved was undertaken for purposes of 
verification. "Sordello " alone may have been 
conceived on a rather different plan, and I 
have no authority whatever for admitting that 
it was so. The discovery of the record of the 
Franceschini case was, as its author has every- 
where declared, an accident. 



200 ROBERT BROWNING. 

A single relic exists for us of this visit to 
the South — a shell picked up, according to 
its inscription, on one of the Siren Isles, Octo- 
ber 4, 1844; but many of its reminiscences 
are embodied in that vivid and charming pic- 
ture " The Englishman in Italy/' which ap- 
peared in the " Bells and Pomegranates " 
number for the following year. Naples always 
remained a bright spot in the poet's memory ; 
and if it had been, like Asolo, his first expe- 
rience of Italy, it must have drawn him in 
later years the more powerfully of the two. 
At one period, indeed, he dreamed of it as a 
home for his declining days. 



CHAPTER IX. 

1844-1849. 

Introduction to Miss Barrett. — Engagement. —Motives for 
Secrecy. -Marriage. -Journey to Italy. - Extract of 
Letter from Mr. Fox. -Mrs. Browning's Letters to Miss 
• Mitf ord. — Life at Pisa. — Vallombrosa. — Florence ; Mr. 
Powers; Miss Boyle. - Proposed British Mission to the 
Vatican. - Father Prout. — Palazzo Guidi. - Fano ; An- 
cona. — « A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" at Sadler's Wells. 

During his recent intercourse with the 
Browning family Mr. Kenyon had often 
spoken of his invalid cousin, Elizabeth Bar- 
rett/ and had given them copies of her works ; 
and when the poet returned to England, late 
m 1844, he saw the volume containing " Lady 
Geraldine's Courtship/' which had appeared 
during his absence. On hearing him express 

1 Properly E. Barrett Moulton - Barrett. The first of 
these surnames was that originally borne by the family, but 
dropped on the annexation of the second. It has now for 
some years been resumed. 



202 ROBERT BROWNING. 

his admiration of it, Mr. Kenyon begged liim 
to write to Miss Barrett, and himself tell her 
how the. poems had impressed him ; " for," he 
added, " my cousin is a great invalid, and sees 
no one, but great souls jump at sympathy." 
Mr. Browning did write, and, a few months, 
probably, after the correspondence had been 
established, begged to be allowed to visit her. 
She at first refused this, on the score of her 
deHcate health and habitual seclusion, empha- 
sizing the refusal by words of such touching 
humiUty and resignation that I cannot refrain 
from quoting them. '^ There is nothing to 
see in me, nothing to hear in me. I am a 
weed fit for the ground and darkness." But 
her objections were overcome, and their first 
interview sealed Mr. Browning's fate. 

There is no cause for surprise in the pas- 
sionate admiration with which Miss Barrett so 
instantly inspired him. To begin with, he 
was heart-whole. It would be too much to 
affirm that, in the course of his thirty-two 
years, he had never met with a woman whom 
he could entirely love ; but if he had, it was 



INTRODUCTION TO MISS BARRETT. 203 

not under circumstances which favored the 
growth of such a feeling. She whom he now 
saw for the first time had long been to him 
one of the greatest of Hving poets ; she was 
learned as women seldom were in those days. 
It must have been apparent, in the most fugi- 
tive contact, that her moral nature was as 
exquisite as her mind was exceptional. She 
looked much younger than her age, which he 
only recently knew to have been six years be- 
yond his own ; and her face was filled with 
beauty by the large, expressive eyes. The 
imprisoned love within her must unconsciously 
have leapt to meet his own. It would have 
been only natural that he should grow into 
the determination to devote his life to hers, 
or be swept into an offer of marriage by a 
sudden impulse which his after - judgment 
would condemn. Neither of these things 
occurred. The offer was indeed made under 
a sudden and overmastering impulse. But it 
was persistently repeated, till it had obtained 
a conditional assent. No sane man in Mr. 
Browning's position could have been ignorant 



204 ROBERT BROWNING. 

of tlie responsibilities he was incurring. He 
had, it is true, no experience of illness. Of 
its nature, its treatment, its symptoms direct 
and indirect, he remained pathetically igno= 
rant to his dying day. He did not know 
what disqualifications for active existence 
might reside in the fragile, recumbent form, 
nor in the long years lived without change 
of air or scene beyond the passage, not al- 
ways even allowed, from bedroom to sitting- 
room, from sofa to bed again. But he did 
know that Miss Barrett received him lying 
down, and that his very ignorance of her 
condition left him without security for her 
ever being able to stand. A strong sense of 
sympathy and pity could alone entirely jus- 
tify or explain his act, — a strong desire to 
bring sunshine into that darkened life. We 
miofht be sure that these motives had been 
present with him if we had no direct author- 
ity for beheving it ; and we have this author- 
ity in his own comparatively recent words : 
" She had so much need of care and protec- 
tion. There was so much pity in what I felt 



AN INDEFINITE ENGAGEMENT. 205 

for her ! " The pity was, it need hardly 
be said, at no time a substitute for love, 
though the love in its full force only devel- 
oped itself later ; but it supplied an additional 
incentive. 

Miss Barrett had made her acceptance of 
Mr. Browning's proposal contingent on her 
improving in health. The outlook was there- 
fore vague. But under the influence of this 
great new happiness she did gain some de- 
gree of strength. They saw each other three 
times a week ; they exchanged letters con- 
stantly, and a very deep and perfect under- 
standing established itself between them. Mr. 
Browning never mentioned his visits except 
to his own family, because it was naturally 
feared that if Miss Barrett were known to re- 
ceive one person, other friends, or even ac- 
quaintances, would claim admittance to her ; 
and Mr. Kenyon, who was greatly pleased by 
the result of his introduction, kept silence for 
the same reason. 

In this way the months slipped by till the 
summer of 1846 was drawing to its close, and 



206 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Miss Barrett's doctor then announced that her 
only chance of even comparative recovery lay 
in spending the coming winter in the South. 
There was no rational obstacle to her acting 
on this advice, since more than one of her 
brothers was wilHng to escort her ; but Mr. 
Barrett, while surrounding his daughter with 
every possible comfort, had resigned himself 
to her invalid condition and expected her also 
to acquiesce in it. He probably did not be- 
lieve that she would benefit by the proposed 
change. At any rate he refused his consent 
to it. There remained to her only one alter- 
native, — to break with the old home, and 
travel southwards as Mr. Browning's wife. 

When she had finally assented to this 
course, she took a preparatory step which, in 
so far as it was known, must itself have been 
sufficiently startling to those about her : she 
drove to Regent's Park, and when there, 
stepped out of the carriage and on to the 
grass. I do not know how long she stood — 
probably only for a moment ; but I well re- 
member hearing that when, after so long an 



OBSTACLES TO THE MARRIAGE. 207 

interval, she felt earth under her feet and air 
about her, the sensation was almost bewilder- 
ingly strange. 

They were married, with strict privacy, on 
September 12, 1846, at St. Pancras Church. 

The engaged pair had not only not ob- 
tained Mr. Barrett's sanction to their mar- 
riage ; they had not even invoked it ; and 
the doubly clandestine character thus forced 
upon the union could not be otherwise than 
repugnant to Mr. Browning's pride ; but it 
was dictated by the deepest filial affection on 
the part of his intended wife. There could 
be no question in so enlightened a mind of 
sacrificing her own happiness with that of the 
man she loved ; she was determined to give 
herself to him. But she knew that her father 
would never consent to her doing so ; and 
she preferred marrying without his know- 
ledge to acting in defiance of a prohibition 
which, once issued, he would never have re- 
voked, and which would have weighed like a 
portent of evil upon her. She even kept the 
secret of her engagement from her intimate 



208 ROBERT BROWNING. 

friend Miss Mitford, and her second father, 
Mr. Kenyon, that they might not be involved 
in its responsibihty. And Mr. Kenyon, who^ 
probably of all her circle, best understood the 
case, was grateful to her for this considera= 
tion. 

Mr. Barrett was one of those men who will 
not part with their children ; who will do any- 
thing for them except to allow them to leave 
the parental home. We have all known fa- 
thers of this type. He had nothing to urge 
against Robert Browning. When Mr. Ken- 
yon, later, said to him that he could not un- 
derstand his hostility to the marriage, since 
there was no man in the world to whom he 
would more gladly have given his daughter if 
he had been so fortunate as to possess one,^ he 
replied : " I have no objection to the young 
man, but my daughter should have been think- 
ing of another world ; " and, given his convic- 
tion that Miss Barrett's state was hopeless, 
some allowance must be made for the angered 

1 Mr. Kenyon had been twice married, but he had no chil- 
dren. 



THE MARRIAGE. 209 

sense of fitness which her elopement was cal- 
culated to arouse in him. But his attitude 
was the same, under the varying circumstances, 
with all his daughters and sons alike. There 
was no possible husband or wife whom he 
would cordially have accepted for one of them. 

Mr. Browning had been willing, even at 
that somewhat late age, to study for the Bar, 
or accept, if he could obtain it, any other em- 
ployment which might render him less inelio-i- 
ble from a pecuniary point of view. But Miss 
Barrett refused to hear of such a course ; and 
the subsequent necessity for her leaving Eng- 
land would have rendered it useless. 

For some days after their marriage Mr. and 
Mrs. Browning returned to their old life. He 
justly thought that the agitation of the cere- 
mony had been, for the moment, as much as 

she could endure, and had therefore fixed for 

< 

it a day prior by one week to that of their 
intended departure from England. The only 
difference in their habits was that he did not 
see her ; he recoiled from the hypocrisy of ask- 
mg for her under her maiden name ; and dur- 



\ 



y 



210 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing this passive interval, fortunately short, he 
carried a weight of anxiety and of depression 
which placed it among the most painful peri- 
ods of his existence. 

In the late afternoon or evening of Septem- 
ber 19, Mrs. Browning, attended by her maid 
and her dog, stole away from her father's 
house. The family were at dinner, at which 
meal she was not in the habit of joining them ; 
her sisters Henrietta and Arabel had been 
throughout in the secret of her attachment 
and in full sympathy with it ; in the case of 
the servants, she was also sure of friendly con- 
nivance. There was no difficulty in her es- 
cape, but that created by the dog, which might 
be expected to bark its consciousness of the 
unusual situation. She took him into her 
confidence. She said : " Flush, if you 
make a sound, I am lost." And Flush under- 
stood, — as what good dog would not ? — and 
crept after his mistress in silence. I do not 
remember where her husband joined her ; we 
may be sure it was as near her home as possi- 
Ble. That night they took the boat to Havre, 
Oft their way to Paris. / 



WRATH AND CONSTERNATION. 211 

Only a short time elapsed before Mr. Bar- 
rett became aware o£ what had happened. It 
is not necessary to dwell on his indignation, 
which at that moment, I believe, was shared 
by all his sons. Nor were they the only per- 
sons to be agitated by the occurrence. I£ 
there was wrath in the Barrett family, there 
was consternation in that of Mr. Browning. 
He had committed a crime in the eyes of his 
wife's father ; but he had been guilty, in the 
judgment of his own parents, of one of those 
errors which are worse. A hundred times the 
possible advantages of marrying a Miss Bar- 
rett could never have balanced for them the 
risks and dangers he had incurred in wresting 
to himself the guardianship of that frail life 
which might perish in his hands, leaving him 
to be accused of having destroyed it ; and 
they must have awaited the event with feel- 
ings never to be forgotten. 

It was soon to be apparent that in breaking 
the chains which bound her to a sick - room, 
Mr. Browning had not killed his wife, but was 
giving her a new lease of existence. His par- 



212 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ents and sister soon loved her dearly, for her 
own sake as well as her husband's ; and those 
who, if in a mistaken manner, had hitherto 
cherished her, gradually learned, with one ex= 
ception, to value him for hers. It would, 
however, be useless to deny that the marriage 
was a hazardous experiment, involviiig risks of 
suffering quite other than those connected 
with Mrs. Browning's safety : the latent prac- 
tical disparities of an essentially vigorous and 
an essentially fragile existence ; and the time 
came when these were to make themselves felt. 
Mrs. Browning had been a delicate infant. 
She had also outgrown this delicacy and devel- 
oped into a merry, and, in the harmless sense, 
mischief-loving child. The accident which 
subsequently undermined her life could only 
have befallen a very active and healthy gu'l.^ 

1 Her family at that time lived in the country. She was 
a constant rider, and fond of saddling her pony ; and one 
day, when she was about fourteen, she overbalanced herself 
in lifting the saddle, and fell backward, inflicting injuries on 
her head, or rather spine, which caused her great suffering* 
but of which the nature remained for some time undiscov 
ered. 



ILL HEALTH OF MRS. BROWNING. 213 

Her condition justified hope and, to a great 
extent, fulfilled it. She rallied surprisingly 
and almost suddenly in the sunshine of her 
new life, and remained for several years at the 
higher physical level : her natural and now 
revived spirits sometimes, I imagine, lifting 
her beyond it. But her ailments were too 
radical for permanent cure, as the weak voice 
and shrunken form never ceased to attest. 
They renewed themselves, though in slightly 
different conditions ; and she gradually re- 
lapsed, during the winters at least, into some- 
thing like the home-bound condition of her 
earlier days. It became impossible that she 
should share the more active side of her hus- 
band's existence. It had to be alternately 
suppressed and carried on without her. The 
deep heart-love, the many-sided intellectual 
sympathy, preserved their union in rare beauty 
to the end. But to say that it thus main- 
tained itself as if by magic, without effort of 
self-sacrifice on his part or of resignation on 
hers, would be as unjust to the noble qualities 
of both, as it would be false to assert that its 
compensating happiness had ever failed them. 



214 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mr. Browning's troubles did not, even for 
the present, exhaust themselves in that week 
of apprehension. They assumed a deeper 
reality when his delicate wife first gave herself 
into his keeping, and the long hours on steam° 
boat and in diligence were before them. 
What she suffered in body, and he in mind, 
during the first days of that wedding- journey 
is better imagined than told. In Paris they 
either met, or were joined by, a friend, Mrs. 
Anna Jameson (then also en route for Italy), 
and Mrs. Browning was doubly cared for till 
she and her husband could once more put 
themselves on their way. At Genoa came the 
long-needed rest in southern land. From 
thence, in a few days, they went on to Pisa, 
and settled there for the winter. 

Even so great a friend as John Forster was 
not in the secret of Mr. Browning's marriage ; 
we learn this through an amusing paragraph 
in a letter from Mr. Fox, written soon after it 
had taken place : — 

" Forster never heard of the Browning mar- 
riage till the proof of the newspaper (^ Exam- 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER. 215 

iner ') notice was sent ; when he went into 
one of his great passions at the supposed 
hoax, ordered up the compositor to have a 
swear at him, and demanded to see the MS. 
from which it was taken : so it was brought, 
and he instantly recognized the hand of 
Browning's sister. Next day came a letter 
from R. B., saying he had often meant to tell 
him or write of it, but hesitated between the 
two, and neglected both. 

" She was better, and a winter in Italy had 
been recommended some months ago. 

" It seems as if made up by their poetry 
rather than themselves." 

Many interesting external details of Mr. 
Browninof's married life must have been lost to 
us through the wholesale destruction of his 
letters to his family, of w^hich mention has 
been already made, and which he carried out 
before leaving Warwick Crescent about four 
years ago ; and Mrs. Browning's part in the 
correspondence, though still preserved, cannot 
fill the gap, since for a long time it chiefly 
consisted of little personal outpourings, in- 



216 ROBERT BROWNING. 

closed in her husband's letters and supple- 
mentary to them. But she also wrote con- 
stantly to Miss Mitford ; and, from the let- 
ters addressed to her, now fortunately in 
Mr. Barrett Browning's hands, it has been 
possible to extract many passages of a suffi- 
ciently great, and not too private, interest, for 
our purpose. These extracts — in some cases 
almost entire letters — indeed constitute a 
fairly complete record of Mr. and Mrs. 
Browning's joint life till the summer of 1854, 
when Miss Mitford's death was drawing near, 
and the correspondence ceased. Their chron- 
ological order is not always certain, because 
Mrs. Browning never gave the year in which 
her letters were written, and in some cases the 
postmark is obliterated ; but the missing date 
can almost always be gathered from their con- 
tents. The first letter is probably written 
from Paris. 

October 2 [1846]. 

. . . and he, as you say, had done everything 
for me — he loved me for reasons which had 
helped to weary me of myself — loved me 



WINTER AT PISA. 217 

heart to heart persistently — in spite of my 
own will . . . drawn me back to life and 
hope again when I had done with both. My 
life seemed to belong to him and to none 
other, at last, and I had no power to speak a 
word. Have faith in me, my dearest friend, 
till you know him. The intellect is so little 
in comparison to all the rest — to the womanly 
tenderness, the inexhaustible goodness, the 
high and noble aspiration of every hour. 
Temper, spirits, manners — there is not a flaw 
anywhere. I shut my eyes sometimes and 
fancy it all a dream of my guardian angel. 
Only, if it had been a dream, the pain of some 
parts of it would have wakened me before 
now — it is not a dream. . . « 

The three next speak for themselves. 

Pisa [1846]. 

. . . For Pisa, we both like it extremely.. 

The city is full of beauty and repose — and 

the purple mountains gloriously seem to 

beckon us on deeper into the vine land. We 



218 ROBERT BROWNING. 

have rooms close to the Duomo, and leaning 
down on the great CoUegio built by Facini. 
Three excellent bedrooms and a sitting-room 
matted and carpeted, looking comfortable even 
for England. For the last fortnight, except 
the last few sunny days, we have had rain ; 
but the cHmate is as mild as possible, no cold 
with all the damp. Delightful weather we 
had for the traveling. Mrs. Jameson says 
she won't call me improved but transformed 
rather. ... I mean to know something about 
pictures some day. Robert does, and I shall 
get him to open my eyes for me with a little 
instruction — in this place are to be seen the 
first steps of Art. . . « 

Pisa, December 19 [1846]. 
. . . Within these three or four days we 
have had frost — yes, and a little snow — for 
the first time, say the Pisans, within five years. 
Robert says the mountains are powdered to- 
wards Lucca. . . . 



AN ADMIRER OF BALZAC. 219 

February 3 [1847]. 

. . . Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac 
and has read most of his books, but certainly 
he does not in a general way appreciate our 
French people quite with my warmth. He 
takes too high a standard, I tell him, and 
won't listen to a story for a story's sake — I 
can bear, you know, to be amused without a 
strong pull on my admiration. So w^e have 
great wars sometimes — I pull up Dumas's flag 
or Soulie's or Eugene Sue's (yet he was prop- 
erly impressed by the " Mysteres de Paris "), 
and carry it till my arms ache. The plays 
and vaudevilles he knows far more of than I 
do, and always maintains they are the happiest 
growth of the French school. Setting aside 
the masters, observe ; for Balzac and George 
Sand hold all their honors. Then we read 
together the other day " Rouge et Noir," that 
powerful work of Stendhal's, and he observed 
that it was exactly like Balzac iii the raw — 
in the material and undeveloped conception. 
. . . We leave Pisa in April, and pass through 
Florence towards the north of Italy. . . . 



220 ROBERT BROWNING. 

(She writes out a long list of the " Comedie 
Humaine " for Miss Mitford.) 

Mr. and Mrs. Browning must have remained 
in Florence, instead of merely passing through 
it ; this is proved by the contents of the two 
following letters : — 

August 20 [1847]. 

. . . We have spent one of the most de- 
hghtful of summers notwithstanding the heat, 
and I begin to comprehend the possibility 
of St. Lawrence's ecstasies on the gridiron. 
Very hot certainly it has been and is, yet 
there have been cool intermissions, and as we 
have spacious and airy rooms, as Robert lets 
me sit all day in my white dressing-gown 
without a single masculine criticism, and as 
we can step out of the window on a sort of 
balcony terrace which is quite private, and 
swims over with moonlight in the evenings, 
and as we Hve upon watermelons and iced 
water and figs and all manner of fruit, we 
bear the heat with an angelic patience. 

We tried to make the monks of Vallombrosa 



SUMMER AT FLORENCE. 221 

let US stay with them for two months, but the 
new abbot said or impHed that Wilson and I 
stank in his nostrils, being women. So we 
were sent away at the end of five days. So 
provoking ! Such scenery, such hills, such a 
sea of hills looking alive among the clouds — 
which rolled, it was difficult to discern. Such 
fine woods, supernaturally silent, with the 
ground black as ink. There were eagles there 
too, and there was no road. Robert went on 
horseback, and Wilson and I were drawn on a 
sledge {i. e, an old hamper, a basket wine- 
hamper — without a wheel) by two white bul- 
locks, up the precipitous mountains. Think 
of my traveling in those wild places at four 
o'clock in the morning ! a little frightened, 
dreadfully tired, but in an ecstasy of admira- 
tion. It was a sight to see before one died 
and went away into another world. But be- 
ing expelled ignominiously at the end of five 
days, we had to come back to Florence to find 
a new apartment cooler than the old, and wait 
for dear Mr. Kenyon, and dear Mr. Kenyon 
does not come after all. And on the 20th of 



222 ROBERT BROWNING. 

September we take up our knapsacks and turn 
our faces towards Rome, creeping slowly 
along, with a pause at Arezzo, and a longer 
pause at Perugia, and another perhaps at 
Terni. Then we plan to take an apartment 
we have heard of, over the Tarpeian rock, and 
enjoy Rome as we have enjoyed Florence. 
More can scarcely be. This Florence is un- 
speakably beautiful . . . 

Octoher [1847]. 

. . . Very few acquaintances have we 
made in Florence, and very quietly lived out 
our days. Mr. Powers, the sculptor, is our 
chief friend and favorite. A most charming, 
simple, straightforward, genial American — as 
simple as the man of genius he has proved 
himself to be. He sometimes comes to talk 
and take coffee with us, and we like him 
much. The sculptor has eyes like a wild In- 
dian's, so black and full of light — you would 
scarcely marvel if they clove the marble with- 
out the help of his hands. We have seen, 
besides, the Hoppners, Lord Byron's friends 
at Venice ; and Miss Boyle, a niece of the 



DESIRE FOR SECRETARYSHIP. 223 

Earl of Cork, an authoress and poetess on her 
own account, having been introduced to Rob- 
ert in London at Lady Morgan's, has hunted 
us out, and paid us a visit. A very vivacious 
little person, with sparkling talk enough . . . 

In this year, 1847, the question arose of 
a British mission to the Vatican ; and Mr. 
Browning wrote to Mr. Monckton Milnes beg- 
ging him to signify to the Foreign Office his 
more than willingness to take part in it. He 
would be glad and proud, he said, to be secre- 
tary to such an embassy, and to work like a 
horse in his vocation. The letter is given in 
the lately published biography of Lord Hough- 
ton, and I am obliged to confess that it has 
been my first intimation of the fact recorded 
there. When once his " Paracelsus " had ap- 
peared, and Mr. Browning had taken rank as 
poet, he renounced all idea of more active 
work ; and the tone and habits of his early 
married life would have seemed scarcely con- 
sistent with a renewed impulse towards it. 
But the fact was in some sense due to the 



224 ROBERT BROWNING. 

very circumstances of that life : among them, 
his wife's probable incitement to, and certain 
sympathy with, the proceeding. 

The projected winter in Rome had been 
given up, I believe against the doctor's advice, 
on the strength of the greater attractions of 
Florence. Our next extract is dated from 
thence, December 8, 1847. 

..." Think what we have done since I 
last wrote to you. Taken two houses, that is, 
two apartments, each for six months, presign- 
ing the contract. You will set it down to ex- 
cellent poet's work in the way of domestic 
economy, but the fault was altogether mine, 
as usual. My husband, to please me, took 
rooms which I could not be pleased with three 
days through the absence of sunshine and 
warmthe The consequence was that we had 
to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go 
away ourselves — any alternative being prefer- 
able to a return of illness — and I am sure I 
should have been ill if we had persisted in 
staying there. You can scarcely fancy the 
wonderful difference which the sun makes in 



IN THE PIAZZA PITT I. 225 

Italy. So away we came into the blaze of 
him 121 the Piazza Pitti ; precisely opposite the 
Grand Duke's palace; I with my remorse, and 
poor Kobert without a single reproach. Any 
other man, a little lower than the angels, 
would have stamped and sworn a little for the 
mere relief of the thing — but as to his being 
angry with me for any cause except not eat- 
ing enough dinner, the said sun would turn 
the wrong way first. So here we are in the 
Pitti till April, in small rooms yellow with 
sunshine from morning till evening, and most 
days I am able to get out into the piazza and 
walk up and down for twenty minutes without 
feeling a breath of the actual winter . . . 
and Miss Boyle, ever and anon, comes at 
night, at nine o'clock, to catch us at hot 
chestnuts and mulled wine, and warm her feet 
at our fire — and a kinder, more cordial little 
creature, full of talent and accomplishment, 
never had the world's polish on it. Very 
amusing she is too, and original ; and a good 
deal of laughing she and Robert make be- 
tween them. And this is nearly all we see of 



226 R OBER T BRO WNING. 

the Face Divine — I can't make Robert go 
out a sino^le evening^." . . . 

We have five extracts for 1848. One of 
these, not otherwise dated, describes an attack 
of sore -throat which was fortunately Mr. 
Browning's last ; and the letter containing it 
must have been written in the course of the 
summer. 

..." My husband was laid up for nearly 
a month with fever and relaxed sore-throat. 
Quite unhappy I have been over those burn- 
ing hands and languid eyes — the only un- 
happiness I ever had by him. And then he 
would n't see a physician, and if it had not 
been that just at the right moment Mr. Maho- 
ney, the celebrated Jesuit, and ' Father Prout ' 
of Fraser, knowing everything as those Jesuits 
are apt to do, came in to us on his way to 
Rome, pointed out to us that the fever got 
ahead through weakness, and mixed up mth 
his own kind hand a potion of eggs and port 
wine, — to the horror of our Italian servant, 
who lifted up his eyes at such a prescription 
for fever, crying, ' Inglesi ! Inglesi ! ' — the 



FATHER PROUT'S PRESCRIPTION. 227 

case would have been far worse, I have no 
kind of doubt, for the eccentric prescription 
gave the power of sleeping, and the pulse grew 
quieter directly. I shall always be grateful to 
Father Prout — always." ^ 

Mat/ 28. 

. . . And now I must tell you w^iat we 
have done since I wrote last, little thinking of 
doing so. You see our problem was, to get 
to England as much in summer as possible, the 
expense of the intermediate journeys making 
it difficult of solution. On examination of 
the w^hole case, it appeared manifest that we 
were throwing money into the Arno, by our 
way of taking furnished rooms, while to take 
an apartment and furnish it would leave us a 
clear return of the furniture at the end of the 
first year in exchange for our outlay, and all 
but a free residence afterwards, the cheapness 
of furniture being quite fabulous at the pres- 
ent crisis. ... In fact, we have really done 

^ It had not been merely a case of relaxed sore-throat. 
There was an abscess, which burst during this first night of 
sleep. 



228 ROBERT BROWNING. 

it magnificently, and planted ourselves in the 
Guidi Palace in the favorite suite of the last 
Count (his arms are in scagliola on the floor 
of my bedroom). Though we have six beau- 
tiful rooms and a kitchen, three of them quite 
palace rooms and opening on a terrace, and 
though such furniture as comes by slow 
degrees into them is antique and worthy of 
the place, we yet shall have saved money by 
the end of this year. . . . Now I tell you all 
this lest you should hear dreadful rumors of 
our having forsaken our native land, venerable 
institutions and all, whereas we remember it 
so well (it's a dear land in many senses), that 
we have done this thing chiefly in order to 
make sure of getting back comfortably, . . . 
a stone's throw, too, it is from the Pitti, and 
really in my present mind I would hardly ex- 
change with the Grand Duke himself. By 
the bye, as to street, we have no spectators in 
windows in just the gray wall of a church 
called San Felice for good omen. 

Now, have you heard enough of us ? 
What I claimed first, in way of privilege, was 



SETTLING IN CASA GUIDI. 229 

a spring-sofa to loll upon, and a supply of 
rain water to wash in, and you shall see what 
a picturesque oil-jar they have given us for 
the latter purpose ; it would just hold the 
Captain of the Forty Thieves. As for the 
chairs and tables, I yield the more especial 
interest in them to Robert ; only you would 
laugh to hear us correct one another some- 
times. " Dear, you get too many drawers, and 
not enough washing-stands. Pray don't let 
us have any more drawers when we 've noth- 
ing more to put in them." There was no divi- 
sion on the necessity of having six spoons — 
some questions passed themselves. . . . 

July. 

... I am quite well again and strong. 
Robert and I go out often after tea in a 
wandering walk to sit in the Loggia and 
look at the Perseus, or, better still, at the 
divine sunsets on the Arno, turning it to 
pure gold under the bridges. After more 
than twenty months of marriage, we are hap- 
pier than ever. . . . 



230 ROBERT BROWNING. 

August. 

... As for ourselves we have hardly done 
so well — yet well — having enjoyed a great 
deal in spite of drawbacks. Murray, the trai= 
tor, sent us to Fano as " a delightful summer 
residence for an English family," and we found 
it uninhabitable from the heat, vegetation 
scorched into paleness, the very air swooning 
in the sun, and the gloomy looks of the inhab- 
itants sufficiently corroborative of their words 
that no drop of rain or dew ever falls there 
during the summer. A " circulating library " 
which " does not give out books," and " a re- 
fined and intellectual Italian society " (I quote 
Murray for that phrase) which '^ never reads a 
book through" (I quote Mrs. Wiseman, Dr. 
Wiseman's mother, who has lived in Fano 
seven years) complete the advantages of the 
place. Yet the churches are very beautiful, 
and a divine picture of Guercino's is worth 
going all that way to see. ... We fled from 
Fano after three days, and finding ourselves 
cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, 
resolved on substitutino;; for it what the Italians 



VISIT TO ANCONA. ' 231 

call " un hel giroT So we went to Ancona 
— a striking sea city, holding up against the 
brown rocks, and elbowing out the purple 
tides — beautiful to look upon. An exfolia- 
tion of the rock itself you would call the 
houses that seem to grow there — so identical 
is the color and character. I should like to 
visit Ancona again when there is a little air 
and shadow. We stayed a week, as it was, 
living upon fish and cold water. . . . 

The one dated Florence, December 16, is 
interesting with reference to Mr. Browning's 
attitude when he wrote the letters to Mr. 
Frank Hill which I have recently quoted. 

" We have been, at least I have been, a lit- 
tle anxious lately about the fate of the ' Blot 
in the 'Scutcheon ' which Mr. Phelps appHed 
for my husband's permission to revive at Sad- 
ler's. Of course putting the request was mere 
form, as he had every right to act the play — 
only it made me anxious till we heard the re- 
sult — and we both of us are very grateful to 
dear Mr. Chorley, who not only made it his 



232 ROBERT BROWNING. 

business to be at the theatre the first night, 
but, before he slept, sat down Hke a true 
friend to give us the story of the result, and 
never, he says, was a more legitimate success. 
The play went straight to the hearts of the 
audience, it seems, and we hear of its continu- 
ance on the stage, from the papers. You may 
remember, or may not have heard, how Ma- 
cready brought it out and put his foot on it, in 
the flush of a quarrel between manager and 
author ; and Phelps, knowing the whole secret 
and feeling the power of the play, determined 
on making a revival of it in his own theatre. 
Mr. Chorley called his acting ' fine.' " . . , 



CHAPTER X. 

1849-1852. 

Death of Mr. Browning's Mother. — Birth of his Son. — Mrs. 
Browning's Letters continued. — Baths of Lucca. — Flor- 
ence again. — Venice. — Margaret Fuller Ossoli. — Visit to 
England. — Winter in Paris. — Carlyle. — George Sand. — 
Alfred de Musset. 

On March 9, 1849, Mr. Browning's son was 
born. With the joy of his wife's deliverance 
from the dangers of such an event came also 
his first great sorrow. His mother did not 
live to receive the news of her grandchild's 
birth. The letter which conveyed it found 
her still breathing, but in the unconsciousness 
of approaching death. There had been no 
time for warning. The sister could only 
break the suddenness of the shock. A let- 
ter of Mrs. Browning's tells what was to be 
told. 



234 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Florence, April 30 [1849]. 
, . . This is the first packet of letters, 
except one to Wimpole Street, which I have 
written since my confinement. You will have 
heard how our joy turned suddenly into deep 
sorrow by the death of my husband's mother. 
An unsuspected disease (ossification of the 
heart) terminated in a fatal way — and she lay 
in the insensibility precursive of the grave's 
when the letter written with such gladness by 
my poor husband, and announcing the birth of 
his child, reached her address. " It would 
have made her heart bound," said her daugh- 
ter to us. Poor tender heart — the last throb 
was too near. The medical men would not 
allow the news to be communicated. The 
next joy she felt was to be in heaven itself. 
My husband has been in the deepest anguish, 
and indeed, except for the courageous consid- 
eration of his sister, who wrote two letters of 
preparation, saying " She was not well " and 
she " was very ill " when in fact all was over, 
I am frightened to think what the result would 
have been to him. He has loved his mother 



HIS MOTHER'S DEATH. 235 

as such passionate natures only can love, and 
I never saw a man so bowed down in an ex- 
tremity of sorrow — never. Even now, the 
depression is great — and sometimes when I 
leave him alone a little and return to the 
room, I find him in tears. I do earnestly 
wish to change the scene and air — but where 
to go? England looks terrible now. He 
says it would break his heart to see his mo- 
ther's roses over the wall and the place where 
she used to lay her scissors and gloves — 
which I understand so thoroughly that I can't 
say " Let us go to England." We must wait 
and see what his father and sister will choose 
to do, or choose us to do — for of course a 
duty plainly seen would draw us anywhere. 
My own dearest sisters will be painfully disap- 
pointed by any change of plan — only they 
are too good and kind not to understand the 
difficulty — not to see the motive. So do 
you, I am certain. It has been very, very 
painful altogether, this drawing together of 
life and death. Robert was too enraptured at 
my safety and with his little son, and the sud' 
den reaction was terrible. . . . 



236 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Bagni di Lucca. 
. . . We have been wandering in search 
of cool air and a cool bough among all the 
olive-trees to build our summer nest on. My 
husband has been suffering beyond what one 
could shut one's eyes to, in consequence of the 
great mental shock of last March — loss of 
appetite, loss of sleep — looks quite worn and 
altered. His spirits never rallied except with 
an effort, and every letter from New Cross 
threw him back into deep depression. I was 
very anxious, and feared much that the end of 
it all would be (the intense heat of Florence 
assisting) nervous fever or something similar ; 
and I had the greatest difficulty in persuading 
him to leave Florence for a month or two. 
He who generally delights in traveling had 
no mind for change or movement. I had to 
say and swear that Baby and I could n't bear 
the heat, and that we must and would go 
away. " Ce que femme veut, Jiomme veut," if 
the latter is at all amiable, or the former per- 
severing. A.t last I gained the victory. It 
was agreed that we two should go on an ex- 



WANDERINGS IN ITALY. 237 

ploriog journey, to find out where we could 
have most shadow at least expense ; and we 
left our child with his nurse and Wilson, 
while we were absent. We went alono^ the 
coast to Spezzia, saw Carrara with the white 
marble mountains, passed through the olive- 
forests and the vineyards, avenues of acacia- 
trees, chestnut woods, glorious surprises of the 
most exquisite scenery. I say olive-forests 
advisedly — the olive grows like a forest tree 
in those regions, shading the ground with 
tints of silvery network. The olive near 
Florence is but a shrub in comparison, and 
I have learnt to despise a little too the 
Florentine vine, which does not swing such 
portcullises of massive dewy green from one 
tree to another as along the whole road where 
we traveled. Beautiful indeed it was. Spez- 
zia wheels the blue sea into the arms of the 
wooded mountains ; and we had a glance at 
Shelley's house at Lerici. It was melancholy 
to me, of course. I was not sorry that the 
lodgings we inquired about were far above our 
means. We returned on our steps (after two 



238 ROBERT BROWNING. 

days in the dirtiest of possible inns), saw Sera- 
vezza, a village in the mountains, where rock, 
river, and wood enticed us to stay, and the in-= 
habitants drove us off by their unreasonable 
prices. It is curious ^— but just in proportion 
to the want of civilization the prices rise in 
Italy. If you have n't cups and saucers, you 
are made to pay for plate. Well — so finding 
no rest for the soles of our feet, I persuaded 
Robert to go to the Baths of Lucca, only to 
see them. We were to proceed afterwards to 
San Marcello, or some safer wilderness. We 
had both of us, but he chiefly, the strongest 
prejudice against the Baths of Lucca ; taking 
them for a sort of wasp's nest of scandal and 
gaming, and expecting to find everj^hing 
trodden flat by the continental English — yet, 
I wanted to see the place, because it is a place 
to see, after all. So we came, and were so 
charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scen- 
ery, by the coolness of the cHmate, and the 
absence of our countrymen — political trou- 
bles serving admirably our private require- 
mentS; that we made an offer for rooms on 



BATHS OF LUCCA. 239 

the spot, and returned to Florence for Baby 
and the rest of our establishment without fur° 
ther delay. Here we are then. We have been 
here more than a fortnig-ht. We have taken 
an apartment for the season — four months^ 
paying twelve pounds for the whole term, and 
hoping to be able to stay till the end of Octo- 
ber. The living is cheaper than even in Flor- 
ence, so that there has been no extravagance 
in coming here. In fact Florence is scarcely 
tenable during the summer from the excessive 
heat by day and night, even if there were no 
particular motive for leaving it. We have 
taken a sort of eagle's nest in this place — the 
highest house of the highest of the three vil- 
lages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, 
and which lie at the heart of a hundred moun- 
tains sung to continually by a rushing moun- 
tain stream. The sound of the river and of 
the cicale is all the noise we hear. Austrian 
drums and carriage-wheels cannot vex us, God 
be thanked for it ! The silence is full of joy 
and consolation. I think my husband's spirits 
are better already, and his appetite improvedc 



240 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Certainly little Babe's great cheeks are grow- 
ing rosier and rosier. He is out all day when 
the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will 
have it that he is prettier than the whole pop= 
ulation of babies here. . . . Then my whole 
strength has wonderfully improved, — just as 
my medical friends prophesied, — and it seems 
like a dream when I find myself able to climb 
the hills with Robert, and help him to lose 
himself in the forests. Ever since my confine- 
ment I have been growing stronger and 
stronger, and where it is to stop I can't tell 
really. I can do as much or more than at any 
point of my life since I arrived at woman's 
estate. The air of the place seems to pene- 
trate the heart, and not the lungs only : it 
draws you, raises you, excites you. Mountain 
air without its keenness — sheathed in Italian 
sunshine — think what that must be ! And 
the beauty and the solitude — for with a few 
paces we get free of the habitations of men — 
all is delightful to me. What is peculiarly 
beautiful and wonderful is the variety of the 
shapes of the mountains. They are a multi- 



A RIDE INTO THE MOUNTAIN. 241 

tude — and yet there is no likeness. None, 
except where the golden mist comes and trans- 
figures them into one glory. For the rest, 
the mountain there wrapt in the chestnut for- 
est is not like that bare peak which tilts 
against the sky — nor like the serpent twine 
of another which seems to move and coil in 
the moving coiling shadow. . . . 

She writes again : — 

Bagni di Lucca, October 2 [1849]. 

... I have performed a great exploit — rid- 
den on a donkey five miles deep into the 
mountain, to an almost inaccessible volcanic 
ground not far from the stars. Robert on 
horseback, and Wilson and the nurse (with 
Baby) on other donkeys, — guides of course. 
We set off at eight in the morning, and re- 
turned at six p. M. after dining on the moun- 
tain pinnacle, I dreadfully tired, but the child 
laughing as usual, burnt brick color for all 
bad effect. No horse or ass untrained for the 
mountains could have kept foot a moment 
where we penetrated, and even as it was, one 



242 ROBERT BROWNING. 

could not help the natural thrill. No road 
except the bed of exhausted torrents — above 
and through the chestnut forests precipitous 
beyond what you would think possible for as- 
cent or descent. Ravines tearing the ground 
to pieces under your feet. The scenery, sub- 
lime and wonderful, satisfied us wholly, as we 
looked round on the world of innumerable 
mountains, bound faintly with the gray sea — 
and not a human habitation. ... 

The following fragment, which I have re- 
ceived quite without date, might refer to this 
or to a somewhat later period. 

" If he is vain about anything in the world 
it is about my improved health, and I say to 
him, ' But you need n't talk so much to peo- 
ple of how your wife walked here with you, 
and there with you, as if a wife with a pair of 
feet was a miracle of nature.' " 

Florence, February 18 [1850]. 

. . . You can scarcely imagine to your- 
self the retired life we live, and how we have 



ARRIVAL AT VENICE. 243 

retreated from the kind advances of the Eng- 
lish society here. Now people ^eem to under- 
stand that we are to be left alone. . . . 

Florence, April 1 [1850]. 
. . . We drive day by day through the 
lovely Cascine, just sweeping through the city. 
Just such a window where Bianca Capello 
looked out to see the Duke go by — and just 
such a door where Tasso stood and where 
Dante drew his chair out to sit. Strange to 
have all that old world life about us, and the 
blue sky so bright. . . . 

Venice, June 4 [probably 1850]. 

... I have been between Heaven and 
Earth since our arrival at Venice. The 
Heaven of it is ineffable — never had I 
touched the skirts of so celestial a place. The 
beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of 
water up between all that gorgeous color and 
carving, the enchanting silence, the music, the 
gondolas — I mix it all up together and main- 
tain that nothing is hke it, nothing equal to 
it, not a second Venice in the world. 



244 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Do you know when I came first I felt as 
if I never could go away. But now comes the 
earth-side. 

Robert, after sharing the ecstasy, grows 
uncomfortable and nervous, unable to eat or 
sleep, and poor Wilson still worse, in a miser- 
able condition of sickness and headache. Alas 
for these mortal Venices, so exquisite and so 
bilious ! Therefore I am constrained away 
from my joys by sympathy, and am forced to 
be glad that we are going away on Friday. 
For myself, it did not affect me at all. Take 
the mild, soft, relaxing climate — even the 
sirocco does not touch me. And the baby 
grows gloriously fatter in spite of everything. 
. . . As for Venice, you can't get even a 
" Times," much less an " Athenseum." We 
comfort ourselves by taking a box at the opera 
(a whole box on the grand tier, mind) for two 
shillings and eightpence, English. Also, every 
evening at half-past eight, Robert and I are 
sitting under the moon in the great piazza of 
St. Mark, taking excellent coffee and reading 
the French papers. 



MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 245 

If it were possible to draw more largely on 
Mrs. Browning's correspondence for this year, 
it would certainly supply the record of her in- 
timacy, and that of her husband, with Marga- 
ret Fuller Ossoli. A warm attachment sprang 
up between them during that lady's residence 
in Florence. Its last evenings were all spent 
at their house ; and, soon after she had bid- 
den them farewell, she availed herself of a 
two days' delay in the departure of the ship 
to return from Leghorn and be with them one 
evening more. She had what seemed a pro- 
phetic dread of the voyage to America, though 
she attached no superstitious importance to 
the prediction once made to her husband that 
he would be drowned ; and learned when it 
was too late to change her plans that her pres- 
ence there was, after all, unnecessary. Mr. 
Browning was deeply affected by the news of 
her death by shipwreck, which took place on 
July 16, 1850 ; and wrote an account of his 
acquaintance with her, for publication by her 
friends. This also, unfortunately, was lostc 
Her son was of the same age as his, little 



246 ROBERT BROWNING. 

more than a year old ; but she left a token of 
the friendship which might some day have 
united them, in a small Bible inscribed to the 
baby Kobert, " In memory of Angelo OssoH." 

The intended journey to England was de= 
layed for Mr. Browning by the painful associ- 
ations connected with his mother's death ; but 
in the summer of 1851 he found courage to 
go there : and then, as on each succeeding 
visit paid to London with his wife, he com- 
memorated his marriage in a manner all his 
own. He went to the church in which it had 
been solemnized, and kissed the paving-stones 
in front of the door. It needed all this love 
to comfort Mrs. Browning in the estrange- 
ment from her father which was henceforth to 
be accepted as final. He had held no commu- 
nication with her since her marriage, and she 
knew that it was not forgiven ; but she had 
cherished a hope that he would so far relent 
towards her as to kiss her child, even if he 
would not see her. Her prayer to this effect 
remained, however, unanswered. 

In the autumn they proceeded to Paris ; 



WINTER IN PARIS. 247 

whence Mrs. Browning ^vrote, October 22 and 
November 12. 



138 Avenue des Champs Elysdes. 

... It was a long time before we could 
settle ourselves in a private apartment. . . . 
At last we came off to these Champs Elysees, 
to a very pleasant apartment, the window look- 
ing over a large terrace (almost large enough 
to serve the purpose of a garden) to the great 
drive and promenade of the Parisians when 
they come out of the streets to sun and shade 
and show themselves off amono^ the trees. A 
pretty httle dining-room, a writing and dress- 
ing room for Robert beside it, a drawing-room 
beyond that, with two excellent bedrooms, and 
third bedroom for a "femme de menage," 
kitchen, etc. ... So this answers all require- 
ments, and the sun suns us loyally as in duty 
bound considering the southern aspect, and 
we are glad to find ourselves settled for six 
months. We have had lovely weather, and 
have seen a lire only yesterday for the first 
time since we left England. . . . We have 



248 ROBERT BROWNING. 

seen nothing in Paris, except the shell of it. 
Yet, two evenings ago, we hazarded going to a 
reception at Lady Elgin's, in the Faubourg St. 
Germain, and saw some French, but nobody of 
distinction. 

It is a good house, I believe, and she has 
an earnest face which must mean something. 
We w^ere invited to go every Monday between 
eight and twelve. We go on Friday to Ma- 
dame Mohl's, where we are to have some of the 
" celebrites." . . . Carlyle, for instance, I liked 
infinitely more in his personality than I ex- 
pected to like him, and I saw a great deal of 
him, for he traveled with us to Paris, and 
spent several evenings with us, we three to- 
gether. He is one of the most interesting 
men I could imagine, even deeply interesting 
to me ; and you come to understand perfectly 
when you know him, that his bitterness is only 
melancholy, and his scorn, sensibility. Highly 
picturesque, too, he is in conversation ; the 
talk of writing men is very seldom so good. 

And, do you know, I was much taken, in 
London, wdth a young authoress, Geraldine 



JOINED BY CARLYLE. 249 

Jewsbury. You have read her books. . . , 
She herself is quiet and simple, and drew my 
heart out of me a good deal. I felt inclined 
to love her in our half-hour's intercourse. . . . 

138 Avenue des Champs Elys^es (November 12). 

. . . Eobert's father and sister have been 
paying us a visit during the last three weeks. 
They are very affectionate to me, and I love 
them for his sake and their own, and am very 
sorry at the thought of losing them, as we are 
on the point of doing. We hope, however, to 
establish them in Paris, if we can stay, and if 
no other obstacle should arise before the 
spring, when they must leave Hatcham. Lit- 
tle Wiedemann draws, as you may suppose 
... he is adored by his grandfather, and 
then, Robert ! They are an affectionate fam- 
ily, and not easy when removed one from an- 
other, ... 

On their journey from London to Paris, 
Mr. and Mrs. Browning had been joined by 
Carlyle ; and it afterwards struck Mr. Brown- 



250 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing as strange that, in the " Life " of Car- 
lyle, their companionship on this occasion 
should be spoken of as the result of a chance 
meeting. Carlyle not only went to Paris with 
the Brownings, but had begged permission to 
do so ; and Mrs. Browning had hesitated to 
Sfrant this because she was afraid her little 
boy would be tiresome to him. Her fear, 
however, proved mistaken. The child's prat- 
tle amused the philosopher, and led him on 
one occasion to say : " Why, sir, you have as 
many aspirations as Napoleon ! " At Paris 
he would have been miserable without Mr. 
Browning's help, in his ignorance of the lan- 
guage, and impatience of the discomforts 
which this created for him. He could n't ask 
for anything, he complained, but they brought 
him the opposite. 

On one occasion Mr. Carlyle made a sin- 
gular remark. He was walking with Mr. 
Browning, either in Paris or the neighboring 
country, when they passed an image of the 
Crucifixion ; and glancing towards the figure 
of Christ, he said, with his deliberate Scotch 



BERANGER. 251 

utterance : " Ah, poor fellow, your part is 
played out ! " 

Two especially interesting letters are dated 
from the same address, February 15 and 
April 7, 1852. 

..." Beranger lives close to us, and Rob- 
ert has seen him in his white hat, wandering 
along the asphalt. I had a notion, some- 
how, that he was very old, but he is only 
elderly, not much above sixty (which is the 
prime of life, nowadays), and he lives quietly 
and keeps out of scrapes poetical and political, 
and if Robert and I had a little less modesty 
we are assured that we should find access to 
him easy. But we can't make up our minds 
to go to his door and introduce ourselves as 
vagrant minstrels, when he may probably not 
know our names. We could never follow the 
fashion of certain authors, who send their 
books about without intimations of their being 
likely to be acceptable or not, — of which 
practice poor Tennyson knows too much for 
his peace. If, indeed, a letter of introduction 
to Beranger were vouchsafed to us from any 



252 ROBERT BROWNING. 

benign quarter, we should both be delighted, 
but we must wait patiently for the influence 
of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent 
our letter [Mazzini's] to George Sand, accom- 
panied with a little note signed by both of usj 
though written by me, as seemed right, being 
the woman. We half despaired in doing this, 
for it is most difficult, it appears, to get at her, 
she having taken vows against seeing stran- 
gers in consequence of various annoyances and 
persecutions, in and out of print, which it 's 
the mere instinct of a woman to avoid — I 
can understand it perfectly. Also, she is in 
Paris for only a few days, and under a new 
name, to escape from the plague of her noto- 
riety. People said, ' She will never see you ; 
you have no chance, I am afraid.' But we 
determined to try. At least I pricked Robert 
up to the leap — for he was really inclined to 
sit in his chair and be proud a little. ' No,' 
said I, ' you sha^nt be proud, and I wonH be 
proud, and we will see her. I won't die, if I 
can help it, without seeing George Sand.' So 
we gave our letter to a friend, who was to give 



LETTER FROM GEORGE SAND. 253 

it to a friend who was to place it in her hands 

— her abode being a mystery, and the name 
she used unknown. The next day came by 
the post this answer : — 

Madame, j'aurai I'honneur de vous recevoir 
Dimanche prochain, rue Racine, 3. C'est le 
seul jour que je puisse passer chez moi ; et 
encore je n'en suis pas absolument certaine 

— mais je ferai tellement nion possible, que 
ma bonne etoile m'y aidera peut-etre un peu. 
Agreez miUe remerciments de coeur ainsi que 
Monsieur Browning, que j'espere voir avec 
vous, pour la sympathie que vous m'accordez. 

George Sand. 

Paris, 12 fevrier, 1852. 

" This is graceful and kind, is it not ? — 
and we are going to-morrow — I, rather at the 
risk of my life, but I shall roll myself up head 
and all in a thick shawl, and we shall go in 
a close carriage, and I hope I shall be able 
to tell you the result before shutting up this 
letter. 



254 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" Monday. — I have seen G. S. She re- 
ceived us in a room with a bed in it, the only 
room she has to occupy, I suppose, during her 
short stay in Paris. She received us very 
cordially with her hand held out, which I, in 
the emotion of the moment, stooped and kissed 
— upon which she exclaimed, ' Mais non ! je 
ne veux pas,' and kissed me. I don't think 
she is a great deal taller than I am — yes, 
taller, but not a great deal — and a little 
over-stout for that height. The upper part 
of the face is fine, the forehead, eyebrows, and 
eyes — dark glowing eyes as they should be ; 
the lower part not so good. The beautiful 
teeth project a little, flashing out the smile of 
the large, characteristic mouth, and the chin 
recedes. It never could have been a beauti- 
ful face Robert and I agree, but noble and 
expressive it has been and is. The com- 
plexion is olive, quit3 without color ; the hair, 
black and glossy, divided with evident care 
and twisted back into a knot behind the 
head, and she wore no covering to it. Some 
of the portraits represent her in ringlets, and 



GEORGE SAND. 255 

ringlets would be mucli more becoming to the 
style of face, I fancy, for the cheeks are rather 
over-full. She was dressed in a sort of wool- 
en gray gown, with a jacket of the same ma- 
terial (according to the ruling fashion), the 
gown fastened up to the throat, with a small 
linen collarette, and plain white muslin sleeves 
buttoned round the wrists. The hands offered 
to me were small and well-shaped. Her man- 
ners were quite as simple as her costume. I 
never saw a simpler woman. Not a shade of 
affectation or consciousness, even ^— not a 
suffusion of coquetry, not a cigarette to be 
seen ! Two or three young men were sitting 
with her, and I observed the profound respect 
with which they listened to every word she 
said. She spoke rapidly, with a low, unem- 
phatic voice. Kepose of manner is much more 
her characteristic than animation is — only, 
under all the quietness, and perhaps by means 
of it, you are aware of an intense burning 
soul. She kissed me again w^hen we went 
away. . . . 

" April 7. — George Sand we came to 



256 ROBERT BROWNING. 

know a great deal more of. I think Robert 
saw her six times. Once he met her near 
the Tuileries, offered her his arm, and walked 
with her the whole length of the gardens. 
She was not on that occasion looking as w^U 
as usual, being a little too much endiman- 
chee in terrestrial lavenders and super-celes- 
tial blues — not, in fact, dressed with the 
remarkable taste which he has seen in her 
at other times. Her usual costume is both 
pretty and quiet, and the fashionable waist- 
coat and jacket (which are aspectable (?) in 
all the ^Ladies' Companions' of the day) 
make the only approach to masculine wear- 
ings to be observed in her. 

"She has great nicety and refinement in 
her personal ways, I think — and the cigar- 
ette is really a feminine weapon if properly 
understood. 

" Ah ! but I did n't see her smoke. I was 
unfortunate. I could only go with Robert 
three times to her house, and once she was 
out. He was really very good and kind to 
let me go at all after he found the sort of so- 



''THAT POOR woman:' 257 

ciety rampant around her. He did n't like it 
extremely, but being the prince of husbands, 
he was lenient to my desires, and yielded the 
point. She seems to live in the abomination 
of desolation, as far as regards society — 
crowds of ill-bred men who adore her, a ge^ 
noux has, betwixt a puff of smoke and an 
ejection of saliva, — society of the ragged 
red, diluted with the low theatrical. She her- 
self so different, so apart, so alone in her mel- 
ancholy disdain. I was deeply interested in 
that poor woman. I felt a profound compas- 
sion for her. I did not mind much even the 
Greek, in Greek costume, who tutoyed her, 
and kissed her I believe, so Robert said — or 
the other vulgar man of the theatre, who 
went down on his knees and called her ' sub' 
lime,^ ' Caprice cf amities said she with 
her quiet, gentle scorn. A noble woman 
under the mud, be certain. / would kneel 
down to her, too, if she would leave it all, 
throw it off', and be herself as God made her. 
' But she would not care for my kneeling — 
she does not care for me. Perhaps she does 



258 ROBERT BROWNING. 

not care much for anybody by this time, who 
knows ? She wrote one or two or three kind 
notes to me, and promised to venir m^em- 
hrasser before she left Paris, but she did not 
come. We both tried hard to please her, and 
she told a friend of ours that she ' liked us.' 
Only we always felt that we could n't pene- 
trate — could n't really touch her — it was 
all vain. 

" Alfred de Musset was to have been at M. 
Buloz's where Robert was a week ago, on pur- 
pose to meet him, but he was prevented in 
some way. His brother, Paul de Musset, a 
very different person, was there instead, but 
we hope to have Alfred on another occasion. 
Do you know his poems ? He is not capa- 
ble of large grasps, but he has poet's life 
and blood in him, I assure you. . . . We are 
expecting a visit from Lamartine, who does a 
great deal of honor to both of us in the way 
of appreciation, and was kind enough to pro- 
pose to come. I will tell you all about it." 

Mr. Browning fully shared his wife's im- 
pression of a want of frank cordiality on 



A LETTER FOR VICTOR HUGO. 259 

George Sand's part ; and was especially 
struck by it in reference to himself, with 
whom it seemed more natural that she should 
feel at ease. He could only imagine that his 
studied courtesy towards her was felt by her 
as a rebuke to the latitude which she granted 
to other men. 

Another eminent French writer whom he 
much wished to know was Victor Hugo, and 
I am told that for years he carried about him 
a letter of introduction from Lord Houghton, 
always hoping for an opportunity of present- 
ing it. The hope was not fulfilled, though, 
in 1866, Mr. Browning crossed to Saint Malo 
by the Channel Islands and spent three days 
in Jersey. 



CHAPTER XI. 

1852-1855. 

M. Joseph Milsand. — His close Friendship with Mr. Brown- 
ing ; Mrs. Browning's Impression of him. — New Edition 
of Mr. Browning's Poems. — " Christmas Eve and Easter 
Day." — "Essay" on Shelley. — Summer in London. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. — Florence ; secluded Life. — 
Letters from Mr. and Mrs. Browning. — " Colombe's 
Birthday." — Baths of Lucca. — Mrs. Browning's Letters. 
— Winter in Rome. — Mr. and Mrs. Story. — Mrs, Sar- 
toris. — Mrs. Fanny Kemble. — Summer in London. — 
Tennyson. — Ruskin. 

It was during this winter in Paris tliat Mr. 
Browning became acquainted with M. Joseph 
Milsand^ the second Frenchman with whom 
he was to be united by ties of deep friend- 
ship and affection. M. Milsand was at that 
time, and for long afterwards, a frequent con- 
tributor to the " Revue des Deux Mondes ; " 
his range of subjects being enlarged by his, 
for a Frenchman, exceptional knowledge of 



M. JOSEPH MILS AND. 2G1 

English life, language, and literature. He 
wrote an article on Quakerism, which was 
much approved by Mr. William Forster, and 
a little volume on Ruskin called " L'Esthe- 
tique Anglaise/' which was published in the 
" Bibliotheque de Philosophie Contempo- 
raine." ^ Shortly before the arrival of Mr. 
and Mrs. Browning in Paris, he had acciden- 
tally seen an extract from " Paracelsus." 
This struck him so much that he procured 
the two volumes of the works and " Christmas 
Eve," and discussed the whole in the " Re- 
vue " as the second part of an essay entitled 
" La Poesie Anglaise depuis Byron." Mr. 
Browning saw the article, and was naturally 
touched at finding his poems the object of 
serious study in a foreign country, while still 
so little regarded in his own. It was no less 
natural that this should lead to a friendship 
which, the opening once given, would have 
grown up unassisted, at least on Mr. Brown- 

1 He published also an admirable little work on the re- 
quirements of secondary education in France, equally appli- 
cable in many respects to any country and to any time. 



262 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing's side ; for M. Milsand united the quali- 
ties of a critical intellect with a tenderness, a 
loyalty, and a simplicity of nature seldom 
found in combination with them. 

The introduction was brought about by the 
daughter of William Browning, Mrs. Jebb- 
Dyke, or more directly by Mr. and Mrs. Fra- 
ser Corkran, who were among the earhest 
friends of the Browning family in Paris. M. 
Milsand was soon an habitue of Mr. Brown- 
ing's house, as somewhat later of that of his 
father and sister ; and when, many years after- 
wards, Miss Browning had taken up her abode 
in England, he spent some weeks of the early 
summer in Warwick Crescent, whenever his 
home duties or personal occupations allowed 
him to do so. Several times also the poet and 
his sister joined him at Saint-Aubin, the sea- 
side village in Normandy which was his spe- 
cial resort, and where they enjoyed the good 
ofiices of Madame Milsand, a home-staying, 
genuine French wife and mother, well ac-= 
quainted with the resources of its very primi- 
tive life. M. Milsand died, in 1886, of apo- 



HIS AFFECTION FOR M/LSAND. 263 

plexy, the consequence, I believe, of heart-dis- 
ease brought on by excessive cold-bathing. 
The first reprint of " Sordello," in 1863, had 
been, as is well known, dedicated to him. The 
" Parleyings," published within a year of his 
death, were inscribed to his memory. Mr. 
Browning's affection for him finds utterance 
in a few strong words which I shall have 
occasion to quote. An undated fragment 
concerning him from Mrs. Browning to her 
sister-in-law points to a later date than the 
present, but may as well be inserted here. 

... "I quite love M. Milsand for being 
interested in Penini. What a perfect creature 
he is, to be sure ! He always stands in the 
top place among our gods. Give him my cor- 
dial regards, always, mind. . . . He wants, I 
think — the only want of that noble nature 

— the sense of spiritual relation ; and also he 
puts under his feet too much the worth of im- 
pulse and passion, in considering the powers 
of human nature. For the rest, I don't know 
such a man. He has intellectual conscience 

— or say — the conscience of the intellect, in 



264 EGBERT BROWNING. 

a higher degree than I ever saw in any man 
of any country — and this is no less Robert's 
behef than mine. When we hear the brilHant 
talkers and noisy thinkers here and there and 
everywhere, we go back to Milsand with a real 
reverence. Also, I never shall forget his del- 
icacy to me personally, nor his tenderness of 
heart about my child." . . . 

The criticism was inevitable from the point 
of view of Mrs. Browning's nature and expe- 
rience ; but I think she would have revoked 
part of it if she had known M. Milsand in 
later years. He would never have agreed with 
her as to the authority of " impulse and pas- 
sion," but I am sure he did not underrate their 
importance as factors in human life. 

M. Milsand was one of the few readers of 
Browning with whom I have talked about him, 
who had studied his work from the beginning, 
and had realized the ambition of his first im- 
aginative flights. He was more perplexed by 
the poet's utterance in later years. " Quel 
homme extraordinaire ! " he once said to me ; 
^^ son centre n'est pas au milieu." The usual 



M. GUSTAVE DOURLANS. 265 

criticism would have been that, while his own 
centre was in the middle, he did not seek it in 
the middle for the things of which he wrote ; 
but I remember that, at the moment in which 
the words were spoken, they impressed me as 
full of penetration. Mr. Browning had so 
much confidence in M. Milsand's linguistic 
powers that he invariably sent him his proof- 
sheets for final revision, and was exceedingly 
pleased with such few corrections as his friend 
was able to suggest. 

With the name of Milsand connects itself in 
the poet's life that of a younger, but very 
genuine friend of both, M. Gustave Dourlans : 
a man of fine critical and intellectual powers, 
unfortunately neutralized by bad health. M. 
Dourlans also became a visitor at Warwick 
Crescent, and a frequent correspondent of Mr. 
or rather of Miss Browning. He came from 
Paris once more, to witness the last sad scene 
in Westminster Abbey. 

The first three years of Mr. Browning's 
married life had been unproductive from a Ht- 
erary point of view. The realization and en- 



266 ROBERT BROWNING. 

joyment of the new companionship, the duties 
as well as interests of the dual existence, and, 
lastly, the shock and pain of his mother's 
death, had absorbed his mental energies for 
the time being. But by the close of 1848 he 
had prepared for publication in the following 
year a new edition of " Paracelsus " and the 
"Bells and Pomegranates" poems. The re- 
print was in two volumes, and the publishers 
were Messrs. Chapman and Hall ; the system, 
maintained through Mr. Moxon, of publication 
at the author's expense, being abandoned by 
Mr. Browning when he left home. Mrs. 
Browning writes of him on this occasion that 
he is paying " peculiar attention to the objec- 
tions made against certain obscurities." He 
himself prefaced the edition by these words : 
" Many of these pieces were out of print, the 
rest had been withdrawn from circulation, 
when the corrected edition, now submitted to 
the reader, was prepared. The various Poems 
and Dramas have received the author's most 
careful revision. December, 1848." 

In 1850, in Florence, he wrote " Christmas 



" CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY:' 267 

Eve and Easter Day ; " and in December, 
1851, in Paris, the Essay on Shelley, to be pre- 
fixed to twenty-five supposed letters of that 
poet, published by Moxon in 1852.^ 

The reading of this Essay might serve to 
correct the frequent misapprehension of Mr. 
Browning's religious views which has been 
based on the literal evidence of " Christmas 
Eve," were it not that its companion poem has 
failed to do so ; though the tendency of ' 
" Easter Day "is as different from that of its 
precursor as their common Christianity admits. 
The balance of argument in " Christmas Eve " 
is in favor of direct revelation of religious 
truth and prosaic certainty regarding it ; while 
the " Easter Day " vision makes a tentative 
and unresting attitude the first condition of 
the religious life ; and if Mr. Browning has 
meant to say — as he so often did say — -that 
religious certainties are required for the unde- 
veloped mind, but that the growing religious 
intelligence walks best by a receding light, he 

^ They were discovered, not long afterwards, to be spuri* 
ous, and the book suppressed. 



268 ROBERT BROWNING. 

denies the positive basis of Christian behef, 
and is no more orthodox in the one set of re- 
flections than in the other. The spirit, how- 
ever, of both poems is ascetic : for the first di- 
vorces rehgious worship from every appeal to 
the poetic sense ; the second refuses to recog= 
nize, in poetry or art, or the attainments of 
the intellect, or even in the best human love, 
any practical correspondence with religion. 
The dissertation on Shelley is, what " Sor- 
dello " was, what its author's treatment of po- 
ets and poetry always must be — an indirect 
vindication of the conceptions of human life 
which " Christmas Eve and Easter Day " con- 
demns. This double poem stands indeed so 
much alone in Mr. Browning's work that we 
are tempted to ask ourselves to what circum- 
stance or impulse, external or internal, it has 
been due ; and we can only conjecture that 
the prolonged communion with a mind so spir- 
itual as that of his wife, the special sympa- 
thies and differences which were elicited by it, 
may have quickened his religious imagination.^ 
while directins: it towards doctrinal or contro' 



ESSAY ON SHELLEY. 269 

versial issues which it had not previously em- 
braced. 

The Essay is a tribute to the genius of 
Shelley ; it is also a justification of his life and 
character, as the balance of evidence then pre- 
sented them to Mr. Browning's mind. It rests 
on a definition of the respective qualities of 
the objective and the subjective poet. ... 
While both, he says, are gifted with the fuller 
perception of nature and man, the one endeav- 
ors to " reproduce things external (whether the 
phenomena of the scenic universe, or the mani- 
fested action of the human heart and brain) 
with an immediate reference, in every case, to 
the common eye and apprehension of his fel- 
low-men, assumed capable of receiving and 
profiting by this reproduction ; " the other 
" is impelled to embody the thing he perceives, 
not so much with reference to the many below, 
as to the One above him, the supreme Intelli- 
gence which apprehends all things in their ab- 
solute truth, — an ultimate view ever aspired 
to, if but partially attained, by the poet's own 
soul. Not what man sees, but what God sees 



270 ROBERT BROWNING. 

— the ' Ideas ' of Plato, seeds of creation ly- 
ing biirningly on the Divine Hand = — it is to- 
ward these that he struggles. Not with the 
combination of humanity in action, but with 
the primal elements of humanity he has to do ; 
and he digs where he stands, — preferring to 
seek them in his own soul as the nearest reflex 
of that absolute Mind, according to the intui- 
tions of which he desires to perceive and 
speak." 

The objective poet is therefore a fashioner, 
the subjective is best described as a seer. The 
distinction repeats itself in the interest with 
which we study their respective lives. We are 
glad of the biography of the objective poet 
because it reveals to us the power by which 
he works ; we desire still more that of the sub- 
jective poet, because it presents us with an- 
other aspect of the work itself. The poetry of 
such a one is an effluence much more than a 
production ; it is " the very radiance and aroma 
of his personality, projected from it but not 
separated. Therefore, in our approach to the 
poetry, we necessarily approach the personality 



A SUBJECTIVE POET. 271 

of the poet ; in apprehending it we apprehend 
him, and certainly we cannot love it without 
loving him." 

The reason of Mr. Browning's prolonged 
and instinctive reverence for Shelley is thus 
set forth in the opening pages of the Essay : 
he recognized in his writings the quality of a 
" subjective " poet ; hence, as he understands 
the word, the evidence of a divinely inspired 
man. 

Mr. Browning goes on to say that we need 
the recorded life in order quite to determine 
to which class of inspiration a given work be- 
longs ; and though he regards the work of 
Shelley as carrying its warrant within itself, 
his position leaves ample room for a with- 
drawal of faith, a reversal of judgment, if the 
ascertained facts of the poet's life should at 
any future time bear decided witness against 
him. He is also careful to avoid drawing too 
hard and fast a line between the two opposite 
kinds of poet. He admits that a pure instance 
of either is seldom to be found ; he sees no 
reason why " these two modes of poetic fac- 



272 ROBERT BROWNING, 

ulty may not issue hereafter from the same 
poet in successive perfect works. ... A 
mere running-in of the one faculty upon the 
other " being, meanwhile, " the ordinary cir- 
cumstance."" 

I venture, however, to think, that in his va- 
rious and necessary concessions, he lets sHp 
the main point ; and for the simple reason that 
it is untenable. The terms subjective and ob- 
jective denote a real and very important dif- 
ference on the ground of judgment, but one 
which tends more and more to efface itself in 
the sphere of the higher creative imagination. 
Mr. Browning might as briefly, and I think 
more fully, have expressed the salient quality 
of his poet, even while he could describe it in 
these emphatic words : — 

"I pass at once, therefore, from Shelley's 
minor excellences to his noblest and predomi- 
nating characteristic. 

" This I call his simultaneous perception of 
Power and Love in the absolute, and of 
Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he 
throws, from his poet's station between both, 



ASSERTION OF PLATONIC IDEAS. 273 

swifter, subtler, and more numerous films for 
the connection of each with each, than have 
been thrown by any modern artificer of whom 
I have knowledge. ... I would rather con- 
sider Shelley's poetry as a sublime fragmen- 
tary essay towards a presentment of the corre- 
spondency of the universe to Deity, of the 
natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to 
the ideal than "... 

This essay has, in common with the poems 
of the preceding years, the one quality of a 
largely religious, and, in a certain sense, 
Christian spirit, and in this respect it falls 
naturally into the general series of its author's 
works. The assertion of Platonic ideas sug- 
gests, however, a mood of spiritual thought 
for which the reference in " Pauline " has 
been our only, and a scarcely sufficient pre- 
paration ; nor could the most definite theism 
to be extracted from Platonic beliefs ever sat- 
isfy the human aspirations which, in a nature 
like that of Robert Browning, culminate in 
the idea of God. The metaphysical aspect of 
the poet's genius here distinctly reappears for 



274 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the first time since " Sordello/' and also for 
the last. It becomes merged in the simpler 
forms of the religious imagination. 

The justification of the man Shelley, to 
which great part of the Essay is devoted^ 
contains little that would seem new to his 
more recent apologists ; little also which to 
the writer's later judgments continued to rec- 
ommend itself as true. It was as a great 
poetic artist, not as a great poet, that the 
author of " Prometheus " and " The Cenci,'' 
of " Julian and Maddalo," and " Epipsychi- 
dion " was finally to rank in Mr. Browning's 
mind. The whole remains, nevertheless, a 
memorial of a very touching affection ; and 
whatever intrinsic value the Essay may pos- 
sess, its main interest must always be bio- 
graphical. Its motive and inspiration are 
set forth in the closing lines : — 

" It is because I have long held these opin- 
ions in assurance and gratitude, that I catch 
at the opportunity offered to me of expressing 
them here ; knowing that the alacrity to fulfill 
an humble office conveys more love than the 



VISIT FROM MR. FOX. 275 

acceptance o£ the honor of a higher one, and 
that better, therefore, than the signal service 
it was the dream of my boyhood to render to 
his fame and memory, may be the saying of a 
few, inadequate words upon these scarcely 
more important supplementary letters of Shel- 
ley." 

If Mr. Browning had seen reason to doubt 
the genuineness of the letters in question, his 
Introduction could not have *been written. 
That, while receiving them as genuine, he 
thought them unimportant, gave it, as he 
justly discerned, its full significance. 

Mr. and Mrs. Browninof returned to Lon- 
don for the summer of 1852, and we have a 
glimpse of them there in a letter from Mr. 
Fox to his daughter. 

July 16 [1852]. 
. . . I had a charming hour with the 
Brownings yesterday ; more fascinated with 
her than ever. She talked lots of George 
Sand, and so beautifully. Moreover she sil- 
ver electroplated Louis Napoleon ! ! They are 
lodging at ^S Welbeck Street ; the house has 



276 ROBERT BROWNING. 

a queer name on the door, and belongs to 
some Belgian family. 

They came in late one night, and R. B. 
says that in the morning twihght he saw three 
portraits on the bedroom wall, and speculated 
who they might be. Light gradually showed 
the first, Beatrice Cenci. " Good ! " said he ; 
" in a poetic region." More light : the sec- 
ond, Lord Byron ! Who can the third be ? 
And what think you it was, but your sketch 
(engraved chalk portrait) of me ? He made 
quite a poem and picture of the affair. 

She seems much better ; did not put her 
hand before her mouth, which I took as a 
compliment : and the young Florentine was 
gracious. 

It need hardly be said that this valued 
friend was one of the first whom Mr. Brown- 
ing introduced to his wife, and that she 
responded with ready warmth to his claims on 
her gratitude and regard. More than one 
joint letter from herseK and her husband 
commemorates this new phase of the inti- 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. 277 

macy ; one especially interesting was written 
from Florence in 1858, in answer to the 
announcement by Mr. Fox of his election for 
Oldham ; and Mr. Browning's contribution^ 
which is very characteristic, will appear in 
due course. 

Either this or the preceding summer 
brought Mr. Browning for the first time into 
personal contact with an early lover of his 
works, Mr. D. G. Rossetti. They had ex- 
changed letters a year or two before, on the 
subject of " Pauline," which Rossetti (as I 
have already mentioned) had read in igno- 
rance of its origin, but with the conviction that 
only the author of " Paracelsus " could have 
produced it. He wrote to Mr. Browning to 
ascertain the fact, and to tell him he had 
admired the poem so much as to transcribe it 
whole from the British Museum copy. He 
now called on him with Mr. William Ailing- 
ham ; and doubly recommended himself to 
the poet's interest by telling him that he was 
a painter. When Mr. Browning was again in 
London, in 1855, Rossetti began painting his 



278 ROBERT BROWNING. 

portrait, which lie finished in Paris in the 
ensuing winter. 

The winter of 1852-53 saw the family once 
more in Florence, and at Casa Guidi, where 
the routine of quiet days was resumed. Mrs. 
Browning has spoken in more than one of her 
letters of the comparative social seclusion in 
which she and her husband had elected to 
live. This seclusion was much modified in 
later years, and many well-known English and 
American names become associated with their 
daily life. It referred indeed almost entirely 
to their residence in Florence, where they 
found less inducement to enter into society 
than in London, Paris, and Rome. But it is 
on record that during the fifteen years of his 
married life, Mr. Browning never dined away 
from home, except on one occasion — an ex- 
ception proving the rule ; and we cannot 
therefore be surprised that he should subse- 
quently have carried into the experience of an 
unshackled and very interesting social inter- 
course, a kind of freshness which a man of 
fifty has not generally preserved. 



^coLOMBE's birthday:' 279 

The one excitement which presented itself 
in the early months of 1853 was the produc- 
tion of "Colombe's Birthday." The first 
allusion to this comes to us in a letter from 
the poet to Lady^ then Mrs. Theodore Mar= 
tin, from which I quote a few passages : — 

Florence, January 31, 1853. 

My dear Mrs. Martin, — ... be assured 
that I, for my part, have been in no danger 
of forgetting my promises any more than your 
performances — which were admirable of all 
kinds. I shall be delighted if you can do 
anything for " Colombe." Do what you think 
best with it, and for me — it will be pleasant 
to be in such hands — only, pray follow the 
corrections in the last edition (Chapman and 
Hall will give you a copy), as they are im- 
portant to the sense. As for the condensation 
into three acts, I shall leave that, and all cut- 
tings and the like, to your own judgment ;. 
and, come what will, I shall have to be grate- 
ful to you, as before. For the rest, you will 
play the part to heart's content, I hiow. . . . 



280 ROBERT BROWNING. 

And how good it will be to see you again, 
and make my wife see you too — she who 
" never saw a great actress/' she says, unless 
it was Dejazet ! . . . 

Mrs. Browning writes about the perform- 
ance April 12 til : — 

..." I am beo^inninof to be anxious about 
' Colombe's Birthday.' I care much more 
about it than Robert does. He says that no 
one will mistake it for his speculation ; it 's 
Mr. Buckstone's affair altogether. True — 
but I should like it to succeed, being Robert's 
play, notwithstanding. But the play is subtle 
and refined for pits and galleries. I am ner- 
vous about it. On the other hand, those the- 
atrical people ought to know — and what in 
the world made them select it if it is not likely 
to answer their purpose? By the way, a 
dreadful rumor reaches us of its having been 
' prepared for the stage by the author.' Don't 
believe a word of it. Robert just said ' yes ' 
when they wrote to ask him, and not a line of 
communication has passed since. He has pre- 



MRS. THEODORE MARTIN. 281 

pared nothing at all, suggested nothing, modi- 
fied nothing. He referred them to his new 
edition, and that was the whole." . . . 
She communicates the result in May : — 
..." Yes, Robert's play succeeded, but 
there could be no ' run ' for a play of that 
kind. It was a succes d'estime^ and some- 
thing more, which is surprising, perhaps, con- 
sidering the miserable acting of the men. 
Miss Faucit was alone in doing us jus- 
tice." ... 

Mrs. Browning did see Miss Faucit on her 
next visit to England. She agreeably sur- 
prised that lady by presenting herself alone 
one morning at her house, and remaining with 
her for an hour and a half. The only person 
who had " done justice " to " Colombe," be- 
sides contributing to whatever success her 
husband's earlier plays had obtained, was 
much more than " a great actress " to Mrs. 
Browning's mind ; and we may imagine 
it would have gone hard with her before she 
renounced the pleasure of making her ac- 
quaintance. 



282 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Two letters, dated from the Baths of Lucca, 
July 15 and August 20, 1853, tell how and 
where the ensuing summer was passed, besides 
introducing us, for the first time, to Mr. and 
Mrs. William Story, between whose family 
and that of Mr. Browning so friendly an 
intimacy was ever afterwards to subsist. 

July 15. 

. . . We have taken a villa at the Baths 
of Lucca after a little holy fear of the com- 
pany there — but the scenery and the cool- 
ness and convenience altogether prevail, and 
we have taken our villa for three months or 
rather more, and go to it next week with a 
stiff resolve of not calling nor being called 
upon. You remember, perhaps, that we were 
there four years ago, just after the birth of 
our child. The mountains are wonderful in 
beauty, and we mean to buy our holiday by 
doing some work. 

Oh, yes ! I confess to loving Florence, 
and to having associated with it the idea of 
home. . . . 



MR. AND MRS. STORY. 283 

Casa Tolomei, Alta Villa, Bagni di Lucca, 

August 20. 

o . . We are enjoying the mountains here, 
riding the donkeys in the footsteps of the 
sheep, and eating strawberries and milk by 
basinsfd. The strawberries succeed one an- 
other throughout the summer, through grow- 
ing on different aspects of the hills. If a 
tree is felled in the forests, strawberries spring 
up just as mushrooms might, and the peasants 
sell them for just nothing. . . . Then our 
friends Mr. and Mrs. Story help the moun- 
tains to please us a good deal. He is the son 
of Judge Story, the biographer of his father, 
and, for himself, sculptor and poet — and she 
a sympathetic, graceful woman, fresh and in- 
nocent in face and thought. We go back- 
wards and forwards to tea, and talk at one 
another's houses. 

. . . Since I began this letter we have had 
a grand donkey excursion to a village called 
Benabbia, and the cross above it on the moun- 
tain-peak. We returned in the dark, and 
were in some danger of tumbling down vari- 



284 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ous precipices — but the scenery was exqui- 
site — past speaking of for beauty. Oh, those 
jagged mountains, rolled together like pre- 
Adamite beasts, and setting their teeth against 
the sky — it was wonderful. . . o 

Mr. Browning's share of the work referred 
to was " In a Balcony ; " also, probably, some 
other portions of " Men and Women ; " the 
scene of the declaration in " By the Fireside " 
was laid in a little adjacent mountain gorge 
to which he walked or rode. A fortnight's 
visit from Mr., now Lord Lytton, was also an 
incident of this summer. 

The next three letters from which I am able 
to quote describe the impressions of Mrs. 
Browning's first winter in Rome. 

Rome, 43 Via Bocca di Leone, 
3° piano, January 18, 1854. 

. . . Well, we are all well to begin with, 
and have been well — our troubles came to 
us through sympathy entirely. A most ex- 
quisite journey of eight days we had from 
Florence to Rome, seeing the great monastery 



FIRST WINTER IN ROME. 285 

and triple church of Assisi and the wonderful 
Terni by the way — that passion of the 
waters which makes the human heart seem so 
still. In the highest spirits we entered Kome, 
Robert and Penini singing actually — for the 
child was radiant and flushed with the con- 
tinual change of air and scene. . . . You re- 
member my telling you of our friends the 
Storys — how they and their two children 
helped to make the summer go pleasantly at 
the Baths of Lucca. They had taken an apart- 
ment for us in Rome, so that we arrived in 
comfort to lighted fires and lamps as if coming 
home, — and we had a glimpse of their smil- 
ing faces that evening. In the morning be- 
fore breakfast, little Edith was brought over 
to us by the manservant with a message, " the 
boy was in convulsions — there was danger." 
We hurried to the house, of course, leaving 
Edith with Wilson. Too true ! All that first 
day we spent beside a death-bed ; for the 
child never rallied, never opened his eyes in 
consciousness, and by eight in the evening he 
was gone. In the mean while, Edith was taken 



286 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ill at our house — could not be moved, said 
the physicians . . . gastric fever, with a ten- 
dency to the brain — and within two days 
her life was almost despaired of — exactly the 
same malady as her brother's. . . . Also the 
English nurse was apparently dying at the 
Storys' house, and Emma Page, the artist's 
youngest daughter, sickened with the same 
disease. 

. . . To pass over the dreary time, I will 
tell you at once that the three patients recov- 
ered — only in poor little Edith's case Roman 
fever followed the gastric, and has persisted 
ever since in periodical recurrence. She is 
very pale and thin. Roman fever is not dan- 
gerous to life, but it is exhausting. . . . Now 
you will understand what ghostly flakes of 
death have changed the sense of Rome to me. 
The first day by a death-bed, the first drive 
out, to the cemetery, where poor little Joe is 
laid close to Shelley's heart ("Cor cordium," 
says the epitaph), and where the mother in- 
sisted on going when she and I went out in 
the carriage together. I am horribly weak 



A CHANGED ROME, 287 

about such things ; I can't look on the earth- 
side of death ; I flinch from corpses and 
graves, and never meet a common funeral 
without a sort of horror. When I look death- 
wards I look over death, and upwards, or I 
can't look that way at all. So that it was a 
struggle with me to sit upright in that car- 
riage in which the poor stricken mother sat 
so calmly — not to drop from the seat, 
Well, all this has blackened Rome to me. I 
can't think about the Caesars in the old strain 
of thought ; the antique words get muddled 
and blurred with warm dashes of modern, 
every-day tears and fresh grave-clay. Rome is 
spoilt to me, — there 's the truth. Still, one 
lives throua;h one's associations when not too 
strong, and I have arrived at almost enjoying 
some things — the climate, for instance, 
which, though pernicious to the general 
health, agrees particularly with me, and the 
sight of the blue sky floating like a sea-tide 
through the great gaps and rifts of ruins. 
. . . We are very comfortably settled in rooms 
turned to the sun, and do work and play by 



288 ROBERT BROWNING. 

turns, having almost too many visitors, hear 
excellent music at Mrs. Sartoris's (A. K.) 
once or twice a week, and have Fanny Kem- 
ble to come and talk to us with the doors 
shut, we three together. This is pleasant. I 
like her decidedly. 

If anybody wants small talk by handfuls, 
of glittering dust swept out of salons, here 's 
Mr. Thackeray besides ! . . . 

Rome, March 29. 

. . . We see a good deal of the Kembles 
herCj and like them both, especially Fanny, 
who is looking magnificent still, with her 
black hair and radiant smile. A very noble 
creature indeed. Somewhat unelastic, unpli- 
ant to the age, attached to the old modes of 
thought and convention — but noble in quali- 
ties and defects. I like her much. She 
thinks me credulous and full of dreams — 
but does not despise me for that reason, — 
which is good and tolerant of her, and pleasant 
too, for I should not be quite easy under her 
contempt. Mrs. Sartoris is genial and gen- 



MEETING WITH LOCKHART. 289 

erous — her milk has had time to stand to 
cream in her happy family relations, which 
poor Fanny Kemble's has not had. Mrs. Sar- 
toris's house has the best society in Kome 

— and exquisite music of course. We met 
Lockhart there, and my husband sees a good 
deal of him — more than I do — because of 
the access of cold weather lately which has 
kept me at home chiefly. Robert went down 
to the seaside, on a day's excursion with him 
and the Sartorises — and I hear found favor 
in his sight. Said the critic, " I like Browning 

— he is n't at all like a damned literary man." 
That's a compliment, I believe, according to 
your dictionary. It made me laugh and think 
of you directly. . . . Robert has been sitting 
for his picture to Mr. Fisher, the English 
artist who painted Mr. Kenyon and Landor. 
You remember those pictures in Mr. Kenyon's 
house in London. Well, he has painted Rob- 
ert's, and it is an admirable likeness. The 
expression is an exceptional expression, but 
highly characteristic. . . » 



290 ROBERT BROWNING. 

May 19. 

... To leave Rome will fill me with bar- 
barian complacency. I don't pretend to have 
a ray of sentiment about Rome. It's a pal- 
impsest Rome, a watering-place written over 
the antique, and I have n't taken to it as a 
poet should, I suppose. And let us speak the 
truth above all things. I am strongly a crea- 
ture of association, and the associations of the 
place have not been personally favorable to 
me. Among the rest, my child, the light of 
my eyes, has been more unwell than I ever 
saw him. . . . The pleasantest days in Rome 
we have spent with the Kembles, the two sis- 
ters, who are charming and excellent both of 
them, in different ways, and certainly they 
have given us some excellent hours in the 
Campagna, upon picnic excursions — they 
and certain of their friends ; for instance, 
M. Ampere, the member of the French Insti- 
tute, who is witty and agreeable, M. Goltz, 
the Austrian minister, who is an agreeable 
man, and Mr. Lyons, the son of Sir Edmund, 
etc. The talk was almost too brilliant for 



MRS. FANNY KEMBLE. 291 

the sentiment of the scenery, but it harmo- 
nized entirely with the mayonnaise and cham- 
pagne. . . . 

It must have been on one of the excursions 
here described that an incident took phice^ 
which Mr. Browning relates with characteris- 
tic comments in a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald 
of July 15, 1882. The picnic party had 
strolled away to some distant spot. Mrs. 
Browning was not strong enough to join them, 
and her husband, as a matter of course, stayed 
with her ; which act of consideration prompted 
Mrs. Kemble to exclaim that he was the only 
man she had ever known who behaved like a 
Christian to his wife. She was, when he 
wrote this letter, reading his works for the 
first time, and had expressed admiration for 
them ; but, he continued, none of the kind 
things she said to him on that subject could 
move him as did those words in the Campagna. 
Mrs. Kemble would have modified her state- 
ment in later years, for the sake of one Eng- 
hsh and one American husband now closely 



292 ROBERT BROWNING. 

related to her. Even then, perhaps^ she did 
not make it without inward reserve. But she 
will forgive me I am sure for having repeated 
it. 

Mr. Browning also refers to her Memoirs, 
which he had just read, and says : " I saw 
her in those [I conclude earlier] days much 
oftener than is set down, but she scarcely 
noticed me ; though I always liked her ex- 
tremely. " 

Another of Mrs. Brownino[;'s letters is writ- 
ten from Florence, June 6 (1854) : — 

..." We mean to stay at Florence a week 
or two longer and then go northward. I 
love Florence — the place looks exquisitely 
beautiful in its garden ground of vineyards 
and olive-trees, sung round by the nightin- 
gales day and night. ... If you take one 
thing with another, there is no place in the 
world like Florence, I am persuaded, for a 
place to live in — cheap, tranquil, cheerful, 
beautiful, within the limits of civilization yet 
out of the crush of it. . . . We have spent 
two delicious evenings at villas outside the 



SUMMER IN LONDON. 293 

gates, one with young Lytton, Sir Edward's 
son, of whom I have told you, I think. I 
like him ... we both do . . . from the bot- 
tom of our hearts. Then, our friend, Fred- 
erick Tennyson, the new poet, we are de- 
lighted to see again." 

..." Mrs. Sartoris has been here on her 
way to Rome, spending most of her time with 
us . . . singing passionately and talking elo- 
quently. She is really charming." . . . 

I have no record of the northward journey 
or of the experiences of the winter of 1854—55. 
In all probability Mr. and Mrs. Browning 
remained in, or as near as possible to, Flor- 
ence, since their income was still too limited 
for continuous traveling. They possibly talked 
of going to England, but postponed it till the 
following year ; we know that they went there 
in 1855, taking his sister with them as they 
passed through Paris. They did not this 
time take lodgings for the summer months, 
but hired a house, 13 Dorset Street, Port- 
man Square ; and there, on September 27, 



294 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Tennyson read his new poem " Maud," to 
Mrs. Browning, while Rossetti, the only other 
person present besides the family, privately 
drew his likeness in pen and ink. The likeness 
has become well known ; the unconscious sitter 
must also, by this time, be acquainted with it ; 
but Miss Browning thinks no one except her- 
self, who was near Rossetti at the table, was 
at the moment aware of its being made. All 
eyes must have been turned towards Tenny- 
son, seated by his hostess on the sofa. Miss 
Arabel Barrett was also of the party. 

Some interesting words of Mrs. Browning's 
carry their date in the allusion to Mr. Ruskin ; 
but I cannot ascertain it more precisely : — 

" We went to Denmark Hill yesterday to 
have luncheon with them, and see the Turners, 
which, by the way, are divine. I like Mr. 
Ruskin much, and so does Robert. Very 
gentle, yet earnest, — refined and truthful. 
I like him very much. We count him one 
among the valuable acquaintances made this 
year in England." 



CHAPTER XII. 

1855-1858. 

"' Men and Women." — " Karshook." — " Two in the Cam- 
pagna." — Winter in Paris ; Lady Elgin. — " Aurora 
Leigh." — Death of Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Barrett. — Pe- 
nini. — Mrs. Browning's Letters to Miss Browning. — The 
Florentine Carnival. — Baths of Lucca. — Spiritualism. — 
Mr. Kirkup ; Count Ginnasi. — Letter from Mr. Browning 
to Mr. Fox. — Havre. 

The beautiful " One Word More " was 
dated from London in September ; and the 
fifty poems gathered together under the title 
of " Men and Women " were published before 
the close of the year, in two volumes, by 
Messrs. Chapman and Hall.^ They are all 
familiar friends to Mr. Browning's readers, in 
their first arrangement and appearance, as in 

1 The date is given in the edition of 1868 as London, 
185- ; in the Tauchnitz selection of 1872, London and Flor- 
ence, 184- and 185- ; in the new English edition, 184- and 
185-. 



296 ROBERT BROWNING. 

later redistributions and reprints ; but one cu- 
rious little fact concerning them is perhaps not 
generally known. In what is now the eighth 
line of the fourteenth section of " One Word 
More " they were made to include " Kar- 
shook " (Ben Karshook's Wisdom), which 
never was placed amongst them. It was writ- 
ten in April, 1854 ; and the dedication of the 
volume must have been, substantially at least, 
in existence, before the author decided to omit 
it. The wrong name, once given, was re- 
tained, I have no doubt, from preference for 
its terminal sound ; and " Karshook " only 
became " Karshish " in the Tauchnitz copy 
of 1872, arid in the EngHsh edition of 1889. 

" Karshook " appeared in 1856 in " The 
Keepsake," edited by Miss Power ; but, as we 
are told on good authority, has been printed 
in no edition or selection of the poet's works. 

I am therefore justified in inserting it here : — 

I. 

" Would a man 'scape the rod ? " 
Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, — 

" See that he turn to God 

The day before his death." 



"KARSHOOK." 297 

" Ay, could a man inquire 

When it shall come ! " I say. 
The Rabbi's eye shoots fire — 

" Then let him turn to-day ! " 

n. 

Quoth a young Sadducee : 

" Reader of many rolls, 
Is it so certain we 

Have, as they tell us, souls ? " 

*' Son, there is no reply ! " 

The Rabbi bit his beard : 
" Certain, a soul have / — 

We may have none," he sneer'd. 

Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer, 
The Right-hand Temple-column, 

Taught babes in grace their grammar, 
And struck the simple, solemn. 

Among this first collection of '' Men and 
Women " was the poem called " Two in the 
Campagna." It is a vivid, yet enigmatical 
little study of a restless spirit tantalized by 
glimpses of repose in love, saddened and per- 
plexed by the manner in which this eludes it. 
Nothing that should impress one as more 
purely dramatic ever fell from Mr. Browning's 



298 ROBERT BROWNING. 

pen. We are told, nevertheless, in Mr. Sharp's 
" Life," that a personal character no less ac- 
tual than that of the " Guardian Angel " has 
been claimed for it. The writer, with char- 
acteristic delicacy, evades all discussion of the 
question ; but he concedes a great deal in his 
manner of doing so. The poem, he says, con- 
veys a sense of that necessary isolation of the 
individual soul which resists tho fusing power 
of the deepest love ; and its meaning cannot 
be personally — because it is universally — 
true. I do not think Mr. Browning meant to 
emphasize this aspect of the mystery of indi- 
vidual life, though the poem, in a certain 
sense, expresses it. We have no reason to be- 
lieve that he ever accepted it as constant ; and 
in no case could he have intended to refer its 
conditions to himself. He was often isolated 
. by the processes of his mind ; but there was 
in him no barrier to that larger emotional sym- 
pathy which w^e think of as sympathy of the 
soul. If this poem were true, " One Word 
More " would be false, quite otherwise than in 
that approach to exaggeration which is inci- 



«rPFO IN THE CAMPAGNAr 299 

dental to the poetic form. The true keynote 
of " Two in the Campagna " is the pain of 
perpetual change, and of the conscious, though 
unexplained, predestination to it. Mr. Brown- 
ing could have still less in common with such 
a state, since one of the qualities for which 
he was most conspicuous was the enormous 
power of anchorage which his affections pos- 
sessed. Only length of time and variety of 
experience could fully test this power or fully 
display it ; but the signs of it had not been 
absent from even his earliest life. He loved 
fewer people in youth than in advancing age : 
nature and circumstance combined to widen 
the range, and vary the character of his human 
interests ; but where once love or friendship 
had struck a root, only a moral convulsion 
could avail to dislodge it. I make no deduc- 
tion from this statement when I admit that 
the last and most emphatic words of the poem 
in question, — 

" Only I discern — 
Infinite passion, and the pain 
Of finite hearts that yearn," — 



300 ROBERT BROWNING. 

did probably come from the poet's heart, as 
they also found a deep echo m that of his 
wife, who much loved them. 

From London they returned to Paris for 
the winter of 1855-56. The younger of the 
Kemble sisters, Mrs. Sartoris, was also there 
with her family ; and the pleasant meetings 
of the Campagna renewed themselves for Mr. 
Browning, though in a different form. He 
was also, with his sister, a constant visitor at 
Lady Elgin's. Both they and Mrs. Browning 
were greatly attached to her, and she warmly 
reciprocated the feeling. As Mr. Locker's 
letter has told us, Mr. Browning was in the 
habit of reading poetry to her, and when his 
sister had to announce his arrival from Italy 
or England, she would say : " Robert is com- 
ing to nurse you, and read to you." Lady 
Elgin was by this time almost completely par- 
alyzed. She had lost the power of speech, 
and could only acknowledge the little atten- 
tions which were paid to her by some graceful 
pathetic gesture of the left hand ; but she re- 
tained her sensibilities to the last ; and Miss 



LADY ELGIN. 301 

Browniiiof received on one occasion a serious 
lesson in the risk of ever assuminoc that the 
appearance of unconsciousness guarantees its 
reality. Lady Augusta Bruce had asked her, 
in her mother's presence, how Mrs. Browning 
was ; and, imagining that Lady Elgin was 
unable to hear or understand, she had an- 
swered with incautious distinctness, " I am 
afraid she is very ill," when a little sob from 
the invalid warned her of her mistake. Lady 
Augusta quickly repaired it by rejoining, 
^^ But she is better than she was, is she not ? " 
Miss Browning of course assented. 

There were other fri3nds, old and new, 
•whom Mr. Browning occasionally saw, includ- 
ing, I need hardly say, the celebrated Ma- 
dame Mohl. In the main, however, he led a 
quiet life, putting aside many inducements to 
leave his home. 

Mrs. Browning was then writing " Aurora 
Leigh," and her husband must have been 
more than ever impressed by her power of 
work, as displayed by her manner of working. 
To him, as to most creative writers, perfect 



302 ROBERT BROWNING. 

quiet was indispensable to literary production. 
She wrote in pencil, on scraps of paper, as 
she lay on the sofa in her sitting-room, open 
to interruption from chance visitors, or from 
her little omnipresent son ; simply hiding the 
paper beside her if any one came in, and tak- 
ing it up again when she was free. And if 
this process was conceivable in the large, com- 
paratively silent spaces of their Italian home, 
and amidst habits of life which reserved social 
intercourse for the close of the working day, 
it baffles belief when one thinks of it as car- 
ried on in the conditions of a Parisian winter, 
and the little salon of the apartment in the 
Rue du Colisee in which those months were 
spent. The poem was completed in the en- 
suing summer, in Mr. Kenyon's London house, 
and dedicated, October 17, in deeply pathetic 
words, to that faithful friend, whom the writer 
was never to see as^ain. 

The news of his death, which took place in 
December, 1856, reached Mr. and Mrs. Brown- 
ing in Florence, to be followed in the spring 
by that of Mrs. Browning's father. Husband 



DEATH OF MR. KENYON. 303 

and wife had both determined to forego any 
pecuniary benefit which might accrue to them 
from this event ; but they were not called 
upon to exercise their powers of renunciation. 
By Mr. Kenyon's will they were the richer, as 
is now, I think, generally known, the one by 
six thousand, the other by four thousand 
guineas.^ Of that cousin's long kindness Mrs. 
Browning could scarcely in after-days trust 
herself to speak. It was difficult to her, she 
said, even to write his name without tears. 

I have alluded, perhaps tardily, to Mr. 
Browning's son, a sociable little being, who 
must for some time have been playing a prom- 
inent part in his parents' lives. I saw him for 
the first time in this winter of 1lS5^-5Q>^ and 
remember the grave expression of the little 
round face, the outline of which was common, 
at all events in childhood, to all the members 
of his mother's family, and was conspicuous in 
her, if we may trust an early portrait which 
has recently come to light. He w^ore the curl- 

^ Mr. Kenyon had considerable wealth, derived, like Mr. 
Barrett's, from West Indian estates. 



304 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing hair to which she refers in a later letter, 
and pretty frocks and frills, in which she de- 
lighted to clothe him. It is on record that, 
on one of the journeys of this year, a trunk 
was temporarily lost which contained Peni's 
embroidered trousers, and the MS., whole or 
in part, of " Aurora Leigh ; " and that Mrs. 
Browning had scarcely a thought to spare for 
her poem, in face of the damage to her little 
boy's appearance which the accident involved. 
How he came by his familiar name of Penini 
— hence Peni, and Pen — neither signifies in 
itself, nor has much bearing on his father's 
family history ; but I cannot refrain from a 
word of comment on Mr. Hawthorne's fan- 
tastic conjecture, which has been asserted and 
reasserted in opposition to Mr. Browning's 
own statement of the case. According to Mr. 
Hawthorne, the name was derived from Apen- 
nino, and bestowed on the child in babyhood, 
because Apennino was a colossal statue, and 
he was so very small. It would be strange in- 
deed that any joke connecting '' Baby " with 
a given colossal statue should have found its 



MR. BROWNING'S LITTLE SON. 305 

way into the family without father, mother, or 
nurse being aware of it ; or that any joke 
should have been accepted there which im- 
plied that the little boy was not of normal size^ 
But the fact is still more unanswerable that 
Apennino could by no process congenial to 
the Italian lano'uao^e be converted into Penini. 
Its inevitable abbreviation would be Pennino, 
with a distinct separate sounding of the cen- 
tral 71^ s, or Nino. The accentuation of Penini 
is also distinctly German. 

During this winter in Paris, little Wiede- 
mann, as his parents tried to call him — his 
full name was Robert Wiedemann Barrett — 
had developed a decided turn for blank verse. 
He would extemporize short poems, singing 
them to his mother, who wrote them down as 
he sang. There is no less proof of his hav- 
ing possessed a talent for music, though it 
first naturally showed itself in the love of a 
cheerful noise. His father had once sat down 
to the piano, for a serious study of some 
piece, when the little boy appeared, with the 
evident intention of joining in the perform- 



306 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ance. Mr. Browning rose precipitately? and 
was about to leave tlie room. "Oh!" ex- 
claimed the hurt mother, " you are going 
away, and he has brought his three drums to 
accompany you upon." She herself would 
undoubtedly have endured the mixed melody 
for a little time, though her husband did not 
think she seriously wished him to do so. But 
if he did not play the piano to the accompani- 
ment of Pen's drums, he played piano duets 
with him as soon as the boy was old enough 
to take part in them ; and devoted himself to 
his instruction in this, as in other and more 
important branches of knowledge. ' 

Peni had also his dumb companions, as his 
father had had before him. Tortoises lived 
at one end of the famous balcony at Casa 
Guidi; and when the family were at the 
Baths of Lucca, Mr. Browning would stow 
away little snakes in his bosom, and produce 
them for the child's amusement. As the 
child grew into a man, the love of animals 
which he had inherited became conspicuous 
in him ; and it gave rise to many amusing and 



A PREDILECTION FOR OWLS. 307 

some pathetic little episodes of his artist life. 
The creatures which he gathered about him 
were generally, I think, more highly organ- 
ized than those which elicited his father's 
pecuhar tenderness ; it was natural that he 
should exact more pictorial or more compan- 
ionable qualities from them. But father and 
son concurred in the fondness for snakes, and 
in a singular predilection for owls ; and they 
had not been long established in Warwick 
Crescent, when a bird of that family was do- 
mesticated there. We shall hear of it in a 
lettei from Mr. Browning*. 

Of tis son's moral quality as quite a little 
child his father has told me pretty and very 
distinctive stories, but they would be out of 
place liere.^ 

^ I am induced, on second thoughts, to subjoin one of 
these, for its testimony to the moral atmosphere into which 
the child had been born. He was sometimes allowed to 
play with a little boy not of his own class — perhaps the son 
of a contadino. The child was unobjectionable, or neither 
Penini nor his parents would have endured the association ; 
but the servants once thought themselves justified in treat- 
ing him cavalierly, and Pen flew indignant to his mother, to 



308 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mrs. Browning seems now to have adopted 
the plan of writing independent letters to her 
sister-in-laAV ; and those available for our pur- 
pose are especially interesting. The buoy- 
ancy of tone which has habitually marked 
her communications, but which failed during 
the winter in Rome, reasserts itself in the fol- 
lowing extract. Her maternal comments on 
Peni and his perfections have hitherto been 
so carefully excluded, that a brief allusion to 
him may be allowed on the present occasion. 

1857. 

My dearest Sarianna, . . . Here is Peni- 
ni's letter, which takes up so much room that 
I must be sparing of mine — and, by the 
way, if you consider him improved in his 

complain of their behavior. Mrs. Browning at once sought 
little Alessandro, with kind words and a large piece of cake ; 
but this, in Pen's eyes, only aggravated the offense ; it was 
a direct reflection on his visitor's quality. " He does n't 
tome for take," he burst forth ; " he tomes because he is 
my friend." How often, since I heard this first, have we 
repeated the words, " he does n't tome for take," in half- 
serious definition of a disinterested person or act ! They 
became a standing joke. 



THE CARNIVAL MASQUERADE. 309 

writing, give the praise to Robert, who has 
been taking most patient pains with him in- 
deed. You will see how the little curly head 
is turned with carnival doings. So gay a car- 
nival never was in our experience, for until 
last year (when we were absent) all masks had 
been prohibited, and now everybody has eaten 
of the tree of good and evil till not an apple 
is left. Peni persecuted me to let hun have 
a domino — with tears and embraces — he 
" almost never in all his life had had a dom- 
ino," and he would like it so. Not a black 
domino 1 no — he hated black — but a blue 
domino, trimmed with pink ! that was his 
taste. The pink trimming I coaxed him out 
of, but for the rest, I let him have his way. 
... For my part, the universal madness 
reached me sitting by the fire (whence I had 
not stirred for three months), and you will 
open your eyes when I tell you that I went 
(in domino and masked) to the great opera- 
ball. Yes ! I did, really. Robert, who had 
been invited two or three times to other peo- 
ple's boxes, had proposed to return their kind- 



310 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ness by taking a box himself at the opera this 
night, and entertaining two or three friends 
with galantine and champagne. Just as he 
and I were lamenting the impossibility of 
my going, on that very morning the wind 
changed, the air grew soft and mild, and he 
maintained that I might and should go. 
There was no time to get a domino of my 
own (Robert himself had a beautiful one 
made, and I am having it metamorphosed 
into a black silk gown for myself !), so I sent 
out and hired one, buying the mask. And 
very much amused I was. I like to see these 
characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sa- 
rianna, till I risk my reputation at the hal de 
FajJera at Paris.) Do you think I was satis- 
fied with staying in the box ? No, indeed. 
Down I went, and Robert and I elbowed our 
way through the crowd to the remotest corner 
of the ball below. Somebody smote me on 
the shoulder and cried ''Bella Mascherina ! " 
and I answered as impudently as one feels 
under a mask. At two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, however, I had to give up and come 



AGAIN AT THE BATHS OF LUCCA. 311 

away (being overcome by the heavy air) and 
ingloriously left Robert and our friends to 
follow at half-past four. Think of the re- 
finement and gentleness — yes, I must call it 
superiority of this people — when no excess, 
no quarreling, no rudeness nor coarseness can 
be observed in the course of such wild masked 
liberty ; not a touch of license anywhere, and 
perfect social equality ! Our servant Ferdi- 
nando side by side in the same ball-room 
with the Grand Duke, and no class's deli- 
cacy offended against ! For the Grand Duke 
went down into the ball-room for a short 
time. . . . 

The summer of 1857 saw the family once 
more at the Baths of Lucca, and again in com- 
pany with Mr. Lytton. He had fallen ill at 
the house of their common friend, Miss Blaof- 
den, also a visitor there ; and Mr. Browning 
shared in the nursing, of which she refused to 
intrust any part to less friendly hands. He 
sat up with the invalid for four nights ; and 
would doubtless have done so for as many 



312 ROBERT BROWNING. 

more as seemed necessary, but that Mrs. 
Browning protested against this trifling with 
his own health. 

The only serious difference which ever arose 
between Mr. Browning and his wife referred 
to the subject of spiritualism. Mrs. Browning 
held doctrines which prepared her to accept 
any real or imagined phenomena betokening 
intercourse with the spirits of the dead ; nor 
could she be repelled by anything grotesque 
or trivial in the manner of this intercourse, 
because it was no part of her belief that a 
spirit still inhabiting the atmosphere of our 
earth should exhibit any dignity or solemnity 
not belonging to him while he lived upon it. 
The question must have been discussed by 
them on its general grounds at a very early 
stage of their intimacy ; but it only assumed 
practical importance when Mr. Home came to 
Florence in 1857 or 1858. Mr. Browning- 
found himself compelled to witness some of 
the '^ manifestations." He was keenly alive 
to their generally prosaic and irreverent char- 
acter, and to the appearance of jugglery which 



SPIRITUALISM. 313 

was then involved in them. He absolutely 
denied the good faith of all the persons con- 
cerned. Mrs. Browning as absolutely believed 
it ; and no compromise between them was at- 
tainable, because, strangely enough, neither of 
them admitted as possible that mediums or 
witnesses should deceive themselves. The 
personal aspect which the question thus re- 
ceived brought it into closer and more painful 
contact with their daily life. They might 
agree to differ as to the abstract merits of spir- 
itualism ; but Mr. Browning could not resign 
himself to his wife's trustful attitude towards 
some of the individuals who at that moment 
represented it. He may have had no substan- 
tial fear of her doing anything that could 
place her in their power, though a vague dread 
of this seems to have haunted him ; but he 
chafed against the public association of her 
name with theirs. Both his love for and his 
pride in her resented it. 

He had subsided into a more judicial frame 
of mind when he Avrote " Sludge the Medium," 
in which he says everything which can excuse 



314 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the liar, and, what is still more remarkable, 
modify the lie. So far back as the autumn of 
1860, I heard him discuss the trickery which 
he believed himself to have witnessed, as dis- 
passionately as any other non-credulous per- 
son might have done so. The experience 
must even before that have passed out of the 
foreground of his conjugal life. He remained, 
nevertheless, subject, for many years, to gusts 
of uncontrollable emotion, which would sweep 
over him whenever the question of " spirits " 
or " spiritualism " was revived ; and we can 
only understand this in connection with the 
peculiar circumstances of the case. With all 
his faith in the future, with all his constancy 
to the past, the memory of pain was stronger 
in him than any other. A single discordant 
note in the harmony of that married love, 
though merged in its actual existence, would 
send intolerable vibrations through his remem- 
brance of it. And the pain had not been, in 
this instance, that of simple disagreement. It 
was complicated by Mrs. Browning's refusal to 
admit that disagreement was possible. She 



THE SEEMINGLY SUPERNATURAL. 315 

never believed in her husband's disbelief ; and 
he had been not unreasonably annoyed by her 
always assuming it to be feigned. But his 
doubt of spiritualistic sincerity was not f eignedc 
She cannot have thought, and scarcely can 
have meant to say so. She may have meant 
to say, " You believe that these are tricks, but 
you know that there is something real behind 
them ; " and so far, if no farther, she may 
have been in the rio^ht. Mr. Browning" never 
denied the abstract possibility of spiritual com- 
munication with either living or dead ; he only 
denied that such communication had ever been 
proved, or that any useful end could be sub- 
served by it. The tremendous potentialities 
of hypnotism and thought-reading, now pass- 
ing into the region of science, were not then 
so remote but that an imagination like his 
must have foreshadowed them. The natural 
basis of the seemingly supernatural had not 
yet entered into discussion. He may^ from 
the first, have suspected the existence of some 
mysterious force, dangerous because not un- 
derstood, and for this reason doubly liable to 



316 ROBERT BROWNING. 

fall into dangerous hands. And if this was 
so, he would necessarily regard the whole sys- 
tem of manifestations with an apprehensive 
hostility, which was not entire negation, but 
which rebelled against any effort on the part 
of others, above all of those he loved, to inter- 
pret it into assent. The pain and anger which 
could be aroused in him by an indication on 
the part of a valued friend of even an impar- 
tial interest in the subject points esj)ecially to 
the latter conclusion. 

He often gave an instance of the tricks 
played in the name of spiritualism on credu- 
lous persons, which may amuse those who 
have not yet heard it. I give the story as it 
survives in the fresher memory of Mr. Val 
Prinsep, who also received it from Mr. Brown- 



ing. 



" At Florence lived a curious old savant 
who in his day was well known to all who 
cared for art or history. I fear now few live 
who recollect Kirkup. He was quite a mine 
of information on all kinds of forofotten lore. 
It was he who discovered Giotto's portrait of 



A PRETENDING MEDIUM. 317 

Dante in the Bargello. Speaking of some 
friend, he said, 'He is a most ignorant fel- 
low ! Why, he does not know how to cast a 
horoscope ! ' Of him Browning told me the 
following story. Kirkup was much taken up 
with spiritualism, in which he firmly believed. 
One day Browning called on him to borrow a 
book. He rang loudly at the story, for he 
knew Kirkup, like Landor, w^as quite deaf. 
To his astonishment the door opened at once 
and Kirkup appeared. 

" ' Come in,' he cried ; ' the spirits told 
me there was some one at the door. Ah ! I 
know you do not believe ! Come and see. 
Mariana is in a trance ! ' 

'' Browning entered. In the middle room, 
full of all kinds of curious objects of ' vertu,' 
stood a handsome peasant girl, wdth her eyes 
fixed as though she were in a trance. 

" ' You see. Browning,' said Kirkup, ' she 
is quite insensible, and has no will of her own, 
Mariana, hold up your arm.' 

" The woman slowly did as she was bid. 



318 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" ' She cannot take it down till I tell her/ 
cried Kirkup. 

" ' Very curious/ observed Browning. 
' Meanwhile I have come to ask you to lend 
me a book.' 

" Kirkup, as soon as he was made to hear 
w^hat book was wanted, said he should be de- 
lig-hted. 

" ' Wait a bit. It is in the next room.' 

" The old man shuffled out at the door. No 
sooner had he disappeared than the woman 
turned to Browning, winked, and putting 
down her arm leaned it on his shoulder. 
When Kirkup returned she resumed her posi- 
tion and rigid look. 

" ' Here is the book,' said Kirkup. ' Is n't 
it wonderful ? ' he added, pointing to the 
woman. 

" ' Wonderful,' agreed Browning as he left 
the room. 

"'The woman and her family made a good 
thing of poor Kirkup's spiritualism." 

Something much more remarkable in refer- 
ence to this subject happened to the poet him- 



A CASE OF CLAIRVOYANCE. 319 

self durinof his residence in Florence. It is 
related in a letter to the " Spectator/' dated 
January 30, 1869, and signed J. S. K. 

" Mr. Robert Browning tells me that when 
he was in Florence some years since, an Italian 
nobleman (a Count Ginnasi of Ravenna), vis- 
iting at Florence, was brought to his house 
without previous introduction, by an intimate 
friend. The Count professed to have great 
mesmeric and clairvoyant faculties, and de- 
clared, in reply to Mr. Browning's avowed 
skepticism, that he would undertake to con- 
vince him somehow or other of his powers. 
He then asked Mr. Browning- whether he had 
anything about him then and there, which he 
could hand to him, and which was in any way 
a relic or memento. This. Mr. Browning 
thought was perhaps because he habitually 
wore no sort of trinket or ornament, not even 
a watchguard, and might therefore turn out to 
be a safe challenge. But it so happened that, 
by a curious accident, he was then wearing 
under his coat-sleeves some gold wrist-studs 
wdiich he had quite recently taken into wear, 



S20 ROBERT BROWNING. 

in the absence (by mistake of a seamstress) of 
his ordinary wrist-buttons. He had never be- 
fore worn them in Florence or elsewhere, and 
had found them in some old drawer where 
they had lain forgotten for years. One of 
these studs he took out and handed to the 
Count, who held it in his hand awhile, look- 
ing earnestly in Mr. Browning's face, and 
then he said, as if much impressed, ' (7'e 
qitalche cosa che mi grida 7ielV orecchio 
" Uccisione ! uccisione ! " ' (^ There is some- 
thing here which cries out in my ear, " Mur- 
der ! murder ! " '). 

" ' And truly,' says Mr. Browning, ' those 
very studs were taken from the dead body of 
a great-uncle of mine who was violently killed 
on the estate in St. Kitt's, nearly eighty years 
ago. . . . The occurrence of my great-uncle's 
murder was known only to myself of all men 
in Florence, as certainly was also my posses- 
sion of the studs.' " 

A letter from the poet, of July 21, 1883, 
affirms that the account is correct in every 



A PLEASANT PIECE OF NEWS. 321 

particular, adding, "My own explanation of 
the matter has been that the shrewd Italian 
felt his way by the involuntary help of my 
own eyes and face." The story has been re- 
printed in the Reports of the Psychical Soci- 
ety. 

A pleasant piece of news came to brighten 
the January of 1858. Mr. Fox was returned 
for Oldham, and at once wrote to announce 
the fact. He was answered in a joint letter 
from Mr. and Mrs. BroAvning, interesting 
throughout, but of which only the second part 
is quite suited for present insertion. 

Mrs. Browning, who writes first and at 
most length, ends by saying she must leave a 
space for Robert, that Mr. Fox may be com- 
pensated for reading all she has had to say. 
The husband continues as follows : — 

..." A space for Robert," who has taken 
a breathing space — hardly more than enough 
— to recover from his delight, he won't say 
surprise, at your letter, dear Mr. Fox. But it 
is all right and^ like you, I wish from my 



322 ROBERT BROWNING. 

heart we could get close together again, as in 
those old days, and what times we would have 
her« in Italy ! The realization of the chil- 
dren's prayer o£ angels at the corner of your 
bed (i. e. sofa), one to read and one (my wife) 
to write,^ and both to guard you through the 
night of lodging-keeper's extortions, abomina- 
ble charges for firing, and so on. (Observe, 
to call one's self '^ an angel " in this land is 
rather humble, where they are apt to be 
painted as plumed cut-throats or celestial po- 
lice — you say of Gabriel at his best and 
blithesomest, " Should n't admire meeting him 
in a narrow, lane ! ") 

I say this foolishly just because I can't trust 
myself to be earnest about it. I would, you 
know, I would, always would, choose you out 
of the whole English world to judge and cor- 
rect what I write myself ; my wife shall read 
this and let it stand if I have told her so these 
twelve years — and certainly I have not grown 
intellectually an inch over the good and kind 

1 Mr. Fox much liked to be read to, and was in the habit 
of writing his articles by dictation. 



A LETTER TO MR. FOX. 323 

hand you extended over my head how many 
years ago ! Now it goes over my wife's too. 

How was it Tottie never came here as she 
promised ? Is it to be some other time ? Do 
think of Florence, if ever you feel chilly, and 
hear quantities about the Princess Koyal's 
marriage, and want a change. I hate the 
thought of leaving Italy for one day more 
than I can help — and satisfy my English pre- 
dilections by newspapers and a book or two. 
One gets nothing of that kind here, but the 
stuff out of which books grow, — it lies about 
one's feet indeed. Yet for me, there would be 
one book better than any now to be got here 
or elsewhere, and all out of a great English 
head and heart, — those " Memoirs " you en- 
gaged to give us. Will you give us them ? 

Good-by now — if ever the whim strikes 
you to " make beggars happy," remember us. 

Love to Tottie, and love and gratitude to 
you, dear Mr. Fox, 

From yours ever affectionately, 

Egbert Browning. 



324 ROBERT BROWNING. 

In the summer of this year, the poet with 
his wife and child joined his father and sister 
at Havre. It was the last time they were all 
to be together. 



LIFE AND LETTERS 



OF 



ROBERT BROWNING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

1858-1861. 

Mrs. Browning's Illness. — Siena. — Letter from Mr. Brown- 
ing to Mr. Leighton. — Mrs. Browning's Letters continued. 

— Walter Savage Landor. — Winter in Rome. — Mr. Val 
Prinsep. — Friends in Rome: Mr. and Mrs. Cartwrighl. — 
Multiplying Social Relations. — Massimo d'Azeglio. — Si- 
ena again. — Illness and Death of Mrs. Browning's Sister. 

— Mr. Browning's Occupations. — Madame du Quaire. — 
Mrs. Browning's last Illness and Death. 

I CANNOT quite ascertain, though it might 
seem easy to do so, whether Mr. and Mrs. 
Browning remained in Florence again till the 
summer of 1859, or whether the interven- 
ing months were divided between Florence 



326 ROBERT BROWNING. 

and Rome ; but some words in their letters 
favor the latter supposition. We hear of 
them in September from Mr. Yal Prinsep, in 
Siena or its neighborhood ; with Mr. and Mrs. 
Story in an adjacent villa, and Walter Savage 
Landor in a " cottage " close by. How Mr. 
Landor found himself of the party belongs to 
a little chapter in Mr. Browning's history for 
which J quote Mr. Colvin's words.^ He was 
then living at Fiesole with his family, very 
unhappily, as we all know ; and Mr. Colvin 
relates how he had thrice left his villa there, 
determined to live in Florence alone ; and 
each time been brought back to the nom- 
inal home where so little kindness awaited 
him. 

. o . " The fourth time he presented himself 
in the house of Mr. Browning with only a 
few pauls in his pocket, declaring that nothing 
should ever induce him to return. 

'^ Mr. Browning, an interview with the family 
at the villa having satisfied him that reconcilia- 
tion or return was indeed past question, put 

1 Life of Landor, p, 209. 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 327 

himself at once in communication with Mr. 
Forster and with Lan dor's brothers in Eng- 
land. The latter instantly undertook to sup- 
ply the needs of their eldest brother during 
the remainder of his life. Thenceforth an 
income sufficient for his frugal wants was for° 
warded regularly for his use through the 
friend who had thus come forward at his 
need. To Mr. Browning's respectful and 
judicious guidance Lan dor showed himself 
docile from the first. Removed from the 
inflictions, real and imaginary, of his life at 
Fiesole, he became another man, and at times 
still seemed to those about him like the old 
Landor at his best. It was in July, 1859, 
that the new arrangements for his hfe were 
made. The remainder of that summer he 
spent at Siena, first as the guest of Mr. Story, 
the American sculptor and poet, next in a cot- 
tage rented for him by Mr. Browning near 
his own. In the autumn of the same year 
Landor removed to a set of apartments in the 
Via Nunziatina in Florence, close to the Casa 
Guidi, in a house kept by a former servant of 



328 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mrs. Browning's, an English woman married 
to an Italian.^ Here he continued to Hve dur- 
ing the five years that yet remained to him." 

Mr. Landor's presence is also referred to^ 
with the more important circumstance of a 
recent illness of Mrs. Browning's, in two 
characteristic and interesting letters of this 
period, one written by Mr. Browning to Fred- 
eric Leighton, the other by his wife to her 
sister-in-law. Mr. — now Sir F. — Leighton 
had been studying art during the previous 
winter in Italy. 

Kingdom of Piedmont, Siena, October 9, lo59. 

My dear Leighton, — I hope — and think 
— you know what delight it gave me to hear 
from you two months ago. I was in great 
trouble at the time about my wife, who was 
seriously ill. As soon as she could bear re- 
moval we brought her to a villa here. She 
slowly recovered and is at last well — I be- 

^ Wilson, Mrs. Browning's devoted maid, and another most 
faithful servant of hers and her husband's, Ferdinando Ro- 
magnoli. 



LETTER TO MR. LEIGHTON. 329 

lieve — but weak still and requiring more 
attention than usual. We shall be oblijred 
to return to Rome for the winter — not choos- 
ing to risk losing what we have regained with 
some difficulty. Now you know why I did 
not write at once — and may imagine why, 
having waited so long, I put off telling you 
for a week or two till I could say certainly 
what we do with ourselves. If any amount 
of endeavor could induce you to join us there 
— Cartwright, Russell, the Vatican, and all — 
and if such a step were not inconsistent with 
your true interests — you should have it : but 
I know very well that you love Italy too much 
not to have had weighty reasons for renoun- 
cing her at present — and I want your own 
good and not my own contentment in the mat- 
ter. Wherever you are, be sure I shall follow 
your proceedings with deep and true interest. 
I heard of your successes — and am now 
anxious to know how you get on with the 
great picture, the Ex voto — if it does not 
prove full of beauty and power, two of us 
will be shamed, that 's all ! But / don't fear. 



330 ROBERT BROWNING. 

mind ! Do keep me informed of your prog- 
ress, from time to time — a few lines will 
serve — and then I shall slip some day into 
your studio, and buffet the piano, without 
having grown a stranger. Another thing — - 
do take proper care of your health, and exer- 
cise yourself ; give those vile indigestions no 
chance against you ; keep up your spirits, and 
be as distinguished and happy as God meant 
you should. Can I do anything for you at 
Rome — not to say, Florence ? We go thither 
(i. e. to Florence) to-morrow, stay there a 
month, probably, and then take the Siena 
road again. . 

[The next paragraph refers to some orders 
for photographs, and is not specially interest- 
ing.] 

Cartwright arrived here a fortnight ago — 
very pleasant it was to see him : he left for 
Florence, stayed a day or two, and returned to 
Mrs. Cartwright (who remained at the Inn), 
and they all departed prosperously yesterday 
for Rome. Odo Russell spent two days here 
on his way thither — we liked him much. 



FRIENDS IN ROME. 331 

Prinsep and Jones — do you know them ? — 
are in the town. The Storys have passed the 
summer in the villa opposite, — and no less a 
lion than dear old Landor is in a house a 
few steps off. I take care of him — his ami- 
able family having clawed him a little too 
sharply : so strangely do things come about ! 
I mean his Fiesole " family " — a trifle of 
wife, sons and daughter — not his English 
relatives, who are generous and good in every 
way. 

Take any opportunity of telling dear Mrs. 
Sartoris (however unnecessarily) that I and my 
wife remember her with the old feelinsr — I 
trust she is well and happy to heart's content. 
Pen is quite well, and rejoicing just now in a 
Sardinian pony on which he gallops Hke Puck 
on a dragonfly's back. My wife's kind re- 
gard and best wishes go with those of, 

Dear Leighton, yours affectionately ever, 

K. Browning. 



332 ROBERT BROWNING. 

MRS. TO MISS BROWNING. 

October, 1859. 

. . . After all, it is not a cruel punishment 
to have to go to Kome again this winter, though 
it will be an undesirable expense, and we did 
wish to keep quiet this winter, — the taste 
for constant wanderings having passed away 
as much for me as for Robert. We begin to 
see that by no possible means can one spend 
as much money to so small an end — and then 
we don't work so well, don't live to as much 
use either for ourselves or others. Isa Blag- 
den bids us observe that we pretend to live at 
Florence, and are not there much above two 
months in the year, what with going away for 
the summer and going away for the winter. 
It 's too true. It 's the drawback cf Italy. 
To live in one place there is impossible for us, 
almost just as to live out of Italy at all is 
impossible for us. It is n't caprice on our 
part. Siena pleases us very much — the 
silence and repose have been heavenly things 
to me, and the country is very pretty — 



IMPRESSIONS OF LANDOR. 383 

though no more than pretty — nothing 
marked or romantic — no mountains, except 
so far ojff as to be like a cloud only on clear 
days — and no water. Pretty dimpled 
ground, covered with low vineyards, purple 
hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing 
them. . . . We shall not leave Florence till 
November — Robert must see Mr. Landor 
(his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new 
apartments with Wilson for a duenna. It 's 
an excellent plan for him and not a bad one 
for Wilson. . . . Forgive me if Eobert has 
told you this already. Dear darling Robert 
amuses me by talking of his " gentleness and 
sweetness." A most courteous and refined 
gentleman he is, of course, and very affec- 
tionate to Robert (as he ought to be), but of 
self-restraint, he has not a grain, and of sus- 
piciousness, many grains. Wilson will run 
many risks, and I, for one, would rather not 
run them. What do you say to dashing down 
a plate on the floor when you don't like 
what 's on it ? And the contadini at whose 
house he is lodging now have already been 



834 ROBERT BROWNING. 

accused of opening desks. Still upon that 
occasion (though there was talk of the proba- 
bility of Mr. Landor's " throat being cut 
in his sleep ") as on other occasions, Robert 
succeeded in soothing him — and the poor 
old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring 
softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics 
against his wife and Louis Napoleon. He 
laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one 
of these days he will have to write an ode in 
honor of the Emperor, to please me. 

Mrs. Browning writes somewhat later from 
Rome : — 

..." We left Mr. Landor in great com- 
fort. I went to see his apartment before it 
was furnished. Rooms small, but with a 
lookout into a little garden, quiet and cheer- 
ful, and he does n't mind a situation rather 
out of the way. He pays four pounds ten 
(English) the month. Wilson has thirty 
pounds a year for taking care of him — which 
sounds a good deal, but it is a difficult posi- 
tion. He has excellent, generous, affectionate 



HIS DEBT TO LANDOR. 335 

impulses — but the impulses of the tiger, 
every now and then. Nothing" coheres in 
him — either in his opinions, or, I fear, his 
affections. It is n't age — he is precisely the 
man of his youth, I must believe. Still, his 
genius gives him the right of gratitude on 
all artists at least, and I must say that my 
Robert has generously paid the debt. Robert 
always said that he owed more as a writer to 
Landor than to any contemporary. At pres- 
ent Landor is very fond of him — but I am 
quite prepared for his turning against us 
as he has turned against Forster, who has 
been so devoted for years and years. Only 
one is n't kind for what one gets by it, or 
there would n't be much kindness in this 
world." . . . 

Mr. Browning always declared that his wife 
could impute evil to no one, that she was a 
living denial of that doctrine of orimnal sin 
to which her Christianity pledged her ; and 
the great breadth and perfect charity of her 
views habitually justified the assertion : but 
she evidently possessed a keen insight into 



336 ROBERT BROWNING. 

character, which made her complete suspen- 
sion of judgment on the subject of spiritual- 
ism very difficult to understand. 

The spiritualistic coterie had found a satis= 
factory way of explaining Mr. Browning's 
antagonistic attitude towards it. He was jeal- 
ous, it was said, because the spirits on one 
occasion had dropped a crown on to his wife's 
head and none on to his own. The first 
installment of his long answer to this grotesque 
accusation appears in a letter of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's, probably written in the course of the 
winter of 1859-60. 

..." My brother George sent me a num- 
ber of the ' National Magazine ' with my face 
in it, after Marshall Wood's medallion. My 
comfort is that my greatest enemy will not 
take it to be like me, only that does not go 
far with the indifferent public : the portrait, 
I suppose, will have its due weight in arrest- 
ing the sale of ' Aurora Leigh ' from hence- 
forth. You never saw a more determined vis- 
age of a strong-minded woman with the neck 
of a vicious bull. . . . Still, I am surprised. 



TRIBUTE TO PENVS GRANDFATHER. 337 

I own, at the amount of success, and that 
golden-hearted Robert is in ecstasies about it, 
far more than if it all related to a book of 
his own. The form of the story and also 
something in the philosophy seem to have 
caught the crowd. As to the poetry by 
itself, anything good in that repels, rather. 
I am not so blind as Romney not to per- 
ceive this. . . . Give Peni's and my love 
to the dearest 7iomio (grandfather), whose 
sublime unselfishness and want of common 
egotism presents such a contrast to what is 
here. Tell him I often think of him, and 
always with touched feeling. (When he is 
eighty-six or ninety-six, nobody will be pained 
or humbled by the spectacle of an insane self- 
love resulting from a long life's un governed 
will.) May God bless him! — . . . Robert has 
made his third bust copied from the antique. 
He breaks them all up as they are finished 
■ — it's only matter of education. When the 
power of execution is achieved, he will try 
at something original. Then reading hurts 
him ; as long as I have known him he has not 



338 ROBERT BROWNING. 

been able to read long at a time — lie can do 
it now better than at the beginning. The 
consequence of which is that an active occupa- 
tion is salvation to him. . . . Nobody exactly 
understands him except me, who am in the 
inside of him and hear him breathe. For the 
peculiarity of our relation is, that he thinks 
aloud with me and can't stop himself. ... I 
wanted his poems done this winter very much, 
and here was a bright room with three windows 
consecrated to his use. But he had a room 
all last summer, and did nothing. Then, he 
worked himself out by riding for three or four 
hoUrs together. There has been little poetry 
done since last winter, when he did much. 
He was not incHned to write this winter. The 
modeling combines body-work and soul-work, 
and the more tired he has been, and the more 
his back ached, poor fellow, the more he has 
exulted and been happy. So I could n't be 
much in opposition against the sculpture — I 
could n't in fact at all. He has material for 
a volume, and will work at it this summer, he 
says. 



AMERICAN APPRECIATION. 339 

" His power is much in advance of ' Straf- 
ford/ which is his poorest work of art. Ah, 
the brain stratifies and matures, even in the 
pauses of the pen. 

'' At the same time, his treatment in Eng- 
land affects him, naturally, and for my part I 
set it down as an infamy of that public — no 
other word. He says he has told you some 
things you had not heard, and which I ac- 
knowledge I always try to prevent him from 
repeating to any one. I wonder if he has told 
you besides (no, I fancy not) that an Enghsh 
lady of rank, an acquaintance of ours (ob- 
serve that !), asked, the other day, the Ameri- 
can minister, whether ^Robert was not an 
American.' The minister answered, ^Is it 
possible that you ask me this? Why, there 
is not so poor a village in the United States, 
where they would not tell you that Robert 
Brow^ning was an Englishman, and that they 
were sorry he was not an American.' Very 
pretty of the American minister, was it not ? 
— and literally true, besides. . . . Ah, dear 
Sarianna — I don't complain for myself of an 



340 ROBERT BROWNING. 

unappreciating public. / have no reason. 
But, just for that reason, I complain more 
about Robert — only he does not hear me 
complain — to you I may say, that the blind- 
ness, deafness, and stupidity of the English 
public to Robert are amazing. Of course Mil- 
sand had heard his name — well, the contrary 
would have been strange. Robert is. All 
England can't prevent his existence, I suppose. 
But nobody there, except a small knot of pre- 
Raifaellite men, pretend to do him justice. 
Mr. Forster has done the best, — in the press. 
As a sort of Hon, Robert has his range in so- 
ciety — and — for the rest, you should see 
Chapman's returns ! While in America he is 
a power, a writer, a poet — he is read — he 
lives in the hearts of the people. 

" ' Browning readings ' here in Boston — 
' Browning evenings ' there. For the rest, 
the English hunt lions, too, Sarianna, but their 
lions are chiefly chosen among lords and rail- 
way kings." . . . 

We cannot be surprised at Mrs. Browning's 
desire for a more sustained literary activity on 



MR. VAL PRINSEP. 341 

her husband's part. We learn from his own 
subsequent correspondence that he too re- 
garded the persevering exercise of his poetic 
faculty as almost a religious obligation. But 
it becomes the more apparent that the restless- 
ness under which he was now laboring was its 
own excuse ; and that its causes can have been 
no mystery even to those " outside " hmi. The 
life and climate of Italy were beginning to 
undermine his strength. We owe it perhaps 
to the great and sorrowful change, which was 
then drawing near, that the full power of work 
returned to him. 

During the winter of 1859-60, Mr. Val 
Prinsep was in Rome. He had gone to Siena 
with Mr. Burne Jones, bearing an introduc- 
tion from Rossetti to Mr. Browning and his 
wife ; and the acquaintance with them was 
renewed in the ensuing months. Mr. Prinsep 
had acquired much knowledge of the pop- 
ular, hence picturesque aspects of Roman life^ 
through a French artist long resident in the 
city ; and by the help of the two young men 
Mr. Browning was also introduced to them. 



342 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The assertion that during his married life he 
never dined away from home must be so far 
modified, that he sometimes joined Mr, Prin- 
sep and his friend in a Bohemian meal, at an 
inn near the Porta Pinciana which they much 
frequented; and he gained in this manner 
some distinctive experiences which he liked 
long afterwards to recall. I am again in- 
debted to Mr. Prinsep for a description of 
some of these. 

" The first time he honored us was on an 
evening when the poet of the quarter of the 
' Monte ' had announced his intention of com- 
ing to challenge a rival poet to a poetical con- 
test. Such contests are, or were, common 
in Rome. In old times the Monte and the 
Trastevere, the two great quarters of the eter- 
nal city, held their meetings on the Ponte 
Rotto. The contests were not confined to the 
effusions of the poetical muse. Sometimes it 
was a strife between two lute-players, some= 
times guitarists would engage, and sometimes 
mere wrestlers. The rivalry was so keen that 
the adverse parties finished up with a genera] 



A POETICAL CONTEST. 343 

fight. So the Papal Government had for- 
bidden the meetings on the old bridge. But 
still each quarter had its pet champions, who 
were wont to meet in private before an appre- 
ciative, but less excitable audience, than in 
olden times. 

" Grigi (the host) had furnished a first-rate 
dinner, and his usual tap of excellent wine. 
( Vino del Popolo, he called it.) The Osteria 
had filled ; the combatants were placed op- 
posite each other on either side of a small 
table on which stood two mezzi — long glass 
bottles holding about a quart apiece. For a 
moment the two poets eyed each other like 
two cocks seeking an opportunity to engage. 
Then through the crowd a stalwart carpenter, 
a constant attendant of Gigi's, elbowed his 
way. He leaned over the table with a hand 
on each shoulder, and in a neatly turned coup- 
let he then addressed the rival bards. 

" ' You two,' he said, ' for the honor of 
Rome, must do your best, for there is now 
listening to you a great Poet from England.' 

" Having said this, he bowed to Browning, 



344 ROBERT BROWNING. 

and swaggered back to his place in the crowd, 
amid the applause of the on-lookers. 

" It is not necessary to recount how the two 
Improvisatori poetized, even if I remembered, 
which I do not. 

" On another occasion, when Browning and 
Story were dining with us, we had a little 
orchestra (mandolins, two guitars, and a lute), 
to play to us. The music consisted chiefly 
of well-known popular airs. While they were 
playing with great fervor the Hymn to Gari- 
baldi — an air strictly forbidden by the Papal 
Government, three blows at the door re- 
sounded through the Osteria. The music 
stopped in a moment. I saw Gigi was very 
pale as he walked down the room. There was 
a short parley at the door. It opened, and a 
sergeant and two Papal gendarmes marched 
solemnly up to the counter from which drink 
was supplied. There was a dead silence while 
Gigi supplied them with large measures of 
wine, which the gendarmes leisurely imbibed. 
Then as solemnly they marched out again, 
with their heads well in the air, looking neither 



A NIGHT MARCH. 845 

to the right nor the left. Most discreet if not 
incorruptible guardians of the peace ! When 
the door was shut the music began again; 
but Gigi was so earnest in his protestations, 
that my friend Browning suggested we should 
get into carriages and drive to see the Coli- 
seum by moonlight. And so we sallied forth, 
to the great relief of poor Gigi, to whom it 
meant, if reported, several months of imprison- 
ment, and complete ruin. 

"In after -years Browning frequently re- 
counted with delight this night march. 

" ' We drove down the Corso in two car- 
riages,' he would say. ' In one were our mu- 
sicians, in the other we sat. Yes ! and the 
people all asked, "who are these who make 
all this parade?" At last some one said, 
" Without doubt these are the fellows who 
won the lottery," and everybody cried, " Of 
course these are the lucky men who have 



won." ' " 



The two persons whom Mr. Browning saw 
most, and most intimately, during this and 
the ensuing winter, were probably Mr. and 



346 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mrs. Story. Allusion has already been made 
to the opening of the acquaintance at the 
Baths of Lucca in 1853, to • its continuance in 
Kome in 1853 and 1854, and to the artistic 
pursuits which then brought the two men into 
close and frequent contact with each other. 
These friendly relations were cemented by 
their children, who were of about the same 
age ; and after Mrs. Browning's death, Miss 
Browning took her place in the pleasant inter- 
course which renewed itself whenever their 
respective visits to Italy and to England again 
brought the two families together. A no less 
lasting and truly affectionate intimacy was 
now also growing up with Mr. Cartwright and 
his wife — the Cartwrights (of Aynhoe) of 
whom mention was made in the Siena letter 
to F. Leighton ; and this too was subse- 
quently to include their daughter, now Mrs. 
Guy Le Strange, and Mr. Browning's sister. 
I cannot quite ascertain when the poet first 
knew Mr. Odo Russell, and his mother. Lady 
William Russell, who was also during this, or 
at all events the following winter, in Rome ; 



GROWTH OF SOCIAL RELATIONS. 347 

and whom afterwards in London lie regularly 
visited until her death ; but the acquaintance 
was already entering on the stage in which it 
would spread as a matter of course through 
every branch of the family. His first country 
visit, when he had returned to England, was 
paid with his son to Woburn Abbey. 

We are now indeed fully confronted with 
one of the great difficulties of Mr. Browning's 
biography : that of giving a sufficient idea of 
the growing extent and growing variety of his 
social relations. It is evident from the frag- 
ments of his wife's correspondence that dur- 
ing, as well as after, his married life, he al- 
ways and everywhere knew every one whom it 
could interest him to know. These acquaint- 
ances constantly ripened into friendliness, 
friendliness into friendship. They were ne- 
cessarily often marked by interesting circum- 
stances or distinctive character. To follow 
them one by one would add not chapters, but 
volumes, to our history. The time has not 
yet come at w^iich this could even be under- 
taken ; and any attempt at systematic selec- 



348 ROBERT BROWNING. 

tion would create a false impression of the 
whole. I must therefore be still content to 
touch u]3on such passages of Mr. Browning's 
social experience as lie in the course of a com- 
paratively brief record ; leaving all such as 
are not directly included in it to speak in- 
directly for themselves. 

Mrs. Browning writes again, in 1859 : — 

" Massimo d' Azeglio came to see us, and 
talked nobly, with that noble head of his. I 
was far prouder of his coming than of an- 
other personal distinction ^ you will guess at, 
though I don't pretend to have been insensi- 
ble to that." 

Dr. — afterwards Cardinal — Manning was 
also among the distinguished or interesting 
persons whom they knew in Rome. 

Another, undated extract might refer to the 
early summer of 1859 or 1860, when a meet- 
ing with the father and sister must have been 
once more in contemplation. 

^ An invitation to Mr. Browning to dine in company with 
the young Prince of Wales. 



LETTER TO MISS BROWNING. 349 

Casa Guidi. 
My dearest Sarianna, — I am delighted 
to say that we have arrived, and see our dear 
Florence — the Queen of Italy — after all. 
... A comfort is that Robert is considered 
here to be looking better than he ever was 
known to look — and this notwithstanding 
the gray n ess of his beard . . . which indeed 
is, in my own mind, very becoming to him, 
the argentine touch giving a character of ele- 
vation and thought to the whole physiognomy. 
This grayness was suddenly developed — let 
me tell you how. He was in a state of bil- 
ious irritability on the morning of his arrival 
in Rome, from exposure to the sun or some 
such cause, and in a fit of suicidal impatience 
shaved away his whole beard . . . whiskers 
and all ! ! I cried when I saw him, I was so 
horror-struck. I might have gone into hys- 
terics, and still been reasonable — for no 
human being was ever so disfigured by so sim- 
ple an act. Of course I said when I recovered 
heart and voice, that everything was at an 
end between him and me if he did n't let it 



350 ROBERT BROWNING. 

all grow again directly, and (upon the further 
advice of his looking-glass) he yielded the 
point — and the beard grew — but it grew 
w^iite — which was the just punishment of 
the gods. Our sins leave their traces. 

Well, poor darling Robert won't shock you 
after all ; you can't choose but be satisfied 
with his looks. M. de Monclar swore to me 
that he was not changed for the intermediate 
years. . . . 

\ 
The family returned, however, to Siena for 

the summer of 1860, and from thence Mrs. 

Browning writes to her sister-in-law of her 

great anxiety concerning her sister Henrietta, 

Mrs. Surtees Cook,^ then attacked by a fatal 

disease. 

..." There is nothing or little to add to 

my last account of my precious Henrietta. 

But, dear, you think the evil less than it is 

— be sure that the fear is too reasonable. I 

am of a very hopeful temperament, and I 

never could go on systematically making the 

^ The name was afterwards changed to Altham. 



ILLNESS OF MRS. SURTEES COOK. 351 

worst of any case. I bear up here for a few 
days, and then comes the expectation of a let- 
ter, which is hard. I fight with it for Rob= 
ert's sake, but all the work I put myself to do 
does not hinder a certain effect. She is con- 
fined to her bed almost wholly, and suffers 
acutely. ... In fact, I am living from day 
to day on the merest crumbs of hope — on 
the daily bread which is very bitter. Of 
course it has shaken me a good deal, and in- 
terfered with the advantages of the summer, 
but that 's the least. Poor Robert's scheme 
for me of perfect repose has scarcely been car- 
ried out." . . . 

This anxiety was heightened during the en- 
suing winter in Rome by just the circum- 
stance from which some comfort had been 
expected — the second postal delivery which 
took place every day ; for the hopes and fears 
which might have found a moment's forget- 
fulness in the longer absence of news were, 
as it proved, kept at fever-heat. On one criti- 
cal occasion the suspense became unbearable, 
because Mr. Browning, by his wife's desire, 



352 ROBERT BROWNING. 

had telegraphed for news, begging for a tele- 
graphic answer. No answer had come, and 
she felt convinced that the worst had hap- 
pened, and that the brother to whom the mes- 
sage was addressed could not make up his 
mind to convey the fact in so abrupt a form. 
The telegram had been stopped by the au- 
thorities, because Mr. Odo Russell had under- 
taken to forward it, and his position in Rome, 
besides the known Liberal sympathies of Mr. 
and Mrs. Browning and himself, had laid it 
open to political suspicion. 

Mrs. Surtees Cook died in the course of 
the winter. Mr. Browning always believed 
that the shock and sorrow of this event had 
shortened his wife's life, though it is also 
possible that her already lowered vitality 
increased the dejection into which it plunged 
her. Her own casual allusions to the state of 
her health had long marked arrested progress, 
if not steady decline. We are told, though 
this may have been a mistake, that active 
signs of consumption w^ere apparent in her 
even before the illness of 1859, which was 



MR. BROWNING'S OCCUPATIONS. 353 

in a certain sense the beginning of the end. 
She was completely an invrJid, as well as 
entirely a recluse, during the greater part i£ 
not the whole of this last stay in Rome. 

She rallied, nevertheless, sufficiently to 
write to Miss Browning in April, hi a tone 
fully suggestive of normal health and energy. 
..." In my own opinion he is infinitely 
handsomer and more attractive than when I 
saw him first, sixteen years ago. . . . I be- 
heve people in general would think the same 
exactly. As to the modehng, — well, I told 
you that I grudged a httle the time from his 
own particular art. But it does not do to 
dishearten him about his modehng. He has 
given a great deal of time to anatomy with 
reference to the expression of form, and the 
clay is only the new medium which takes the 
place of drawing. Also, Eobert is pecuHar 
in his ways of work as a poet. I have strug- 
gled a little with him on this point, for I don't 
think him right ; that is to say, it would not 
be right for me. . . . But Robert waits for 
an incKnation, works by fits and starts ; he 



354 ROBERT BROWNING. 

can't do otherwise, he says, and his head is 
full of ideas which are to come out in clay or 
marble. I yearn for the poems, but he leaves 
that to me for the present. . . . You will 
think Robert looking very well when you see 
him ; indeed, you may judge by the photo- 
graphs meanwhile. You know, Sarianna, how 
I used to forbid the moustache. I insisted as 
long as I could, but all artists were against 
me, and I suppose that the bare upper lip does 
not harmonize with the beard. He keeps the 
hair now closer, and the beard is pointed. . . . 
As to the moony whiteness of the beard, it is 
beautiful, / think, but then I think him all 
beautiful, and always." . . . 

Mr. Browning's old friend, Madame du 
Quaire,^ came to Rome in December. She 
had visited Florence three years before, and I 
am indebted to her for some details of the 
spiritualist controversy by which its English 
colony was at that time divided. She was now 
a widow, traveling with her brother ; and Mr. 

1 Formerly Miss Blackett, and sister of the member for 
Newcastle. 



DEATH OF MRS. BROWNING. 355 

Browning came whenever he could, to comfort 
her in her sorrow, and, as she says, discourse 
of nature, art, the beautiful, and all that " con- 
quers death." He little knew how soon he 
would need the same comfort for himself. He 
would also declaim passages from his wife's 
poems ; and when, on one of these occasions, 
Madame du Quaire had said, as so many per- 
sons now say, that she much preferred his 
poetry to hers, he made this characteristic an- 
swer, to be repeated in substance some years 
afterwards to another friend : " You are 
wrong — quite wrong — she has genius ; I am 
only a painstaking fellow. Can't you imagine 
a clever sort of angel who plots and plans, 
and tries to build up something — he wants 
to make you see it as he sees it — shows you 
one point of view, carries you off to another, 
hammering into your head the thing he wants 
you to understand ; and whilst this bother is 
going on God Almighty turns you off a httle 
star — that 's the difference between us. The 
true creative power is hers, not mine." 

Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi on June 



356 ROBERT BROWNING. 

29, 1861, soon after their return to Florence. 
She had had a return o£ the bronchial affec- 
tion to which she was subject ; and a new doc- 
tor who was called in discovered o-rave mischief 
at the luno's, which she herself had lono- be- 
lieved to be existent or impending. But the 
attack was comparatively, indeed actually 
shght ; and an extract from her last letter to 
Miss Browning, dated June 7, confirms what 
her family and friends have since asserted, that 
it was the death of Cavour which gave her the 
final blow. 

..." We come home into a cloud here. 
I can scarcely command voice or hand to name 
Cavoiir. That great soul which meditated 
and made Italy has gone to the di\aner Coun- 
trv. If tears or blood could have saved him 
to us, he should have had mine. I feel yet as 
if I could scarcely comprehend the greatness 
of the vacancy. A hundred Garibaldis for 
such a man ! " 

Her death was signahzed by the appearance 
~ this time, I am told, unexpected — of 
another brilhant comet, which passed so near 
the earth as to come into contact with it. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1861-1863. 

Miss Blagden. — Letters from Mr. Browning to Miss Ha= 
worth and Mr. Leighton. — His Feeling iu regard to Fu- 
neral Ceremonies. — Establishment in London. — Plan of 
Life. — Letter to Madame du Quaire. — Miss Arabel Bar- 
rett. — Biarritz. — Letters to Miss Blagden. — Conception 
of " The Ring and the Book." — Biographical Indiscre- 
tion. — New Edition of his Works. — Mr. and Mrs. Procter. 

The friend who was nearest, at all events 
most helpful, to Mr. Browning in this great 
and sudden sorrow was Miss Blagden — Isa 
Blagden, as she was called by all her inti- 
mates. Only a passing allusion to her could 
hitherto find place in this fragmentary record 
of the poet's life; but the friendship which 
had long subsisted between her and MrSc 
Browning brings her now into closer and more 
frequent relation to it. She was for many 
years a centre of English society in Florence ; 



358 ROBERT BROWNING. 

for her genial, hospitable nature, as well as 
literary tastes (she wrote one or two novels, 
I believe not without merit), secured her the 
acquaintance of many interesting persons, some 
of whom occasionally made her house their 
home ; and the evenings spent with her at her 
villa on Bellosguardo live pleasantly in the re- 
membrance of those of our older generation 
who were permitted to share in them. 

She carried the boy away from the house 
of mourning, and induced his father to spend 
his nights under her roof, while the last pain- 
ful duties detained him in Florence. He at 
least gave her cause to deny, what has been 
so often affirmed, that great griefs are neces- 
sarily silent. She always spoke of this period 
as her " apocalyptic month," so deeply poetic 
were the ravings which alternated with the 
simple human cry of the desolate heart : "I 
want her, I want her ! " But the ear which 
received these utterances has long been closed 
in death. The only written outbursts of Mr. 
Browning's frantic sorrow were addressed, I 
believe, to his sister, and to the friend, Ma- 



LETTER TO MR. LEIGHTON. 359 

dame du Quaire, whose own recent loss most 
naturally invoked them, and who has since 
thought best, so far as rested with her, to 
destroy the letters in which they were con- 
tained. It is enough to know by simple state- 
ment that he then suffered as he did. Life 
conquers Death for most of us ; wdiether or 
not " nature, art, and beauty " assist in the 
conquest. It was bound to conquer in Mr. 
Browning's case : first, through his many- 
sided vitality ; and secondly, through the 
special motive for living and striving which 
remained to him in his son. This note is 
struck in two letters which are given me to 
publish, written about three weeks after Mrs. 
Browning's death ; and we see also that by 
this time his manhood was reacting against 
the blow, and bracing itself with such consol- 
ing remembrance as the peace and painless- 
ness of his wife's last moments could afford 
to him. 

Florence, July 19, 1861. 

Dear Leighton, — It is like your old 
kindness to write to me and to say what you 



3G0 ROBERT BROWNING. 

do — I know you feel for me. I can't write 
about it — but there were many alleviating 
circumstances that you shall know one day — 
there seemed no pain, and (what she would 
have felt most) the knowledge of separation 
from us was spared her. I find these things 
a comfort indeed. 

I shall go away from Italy for many a year 
— to Parisj then London for a day or two 
just to talk with her sister — but if I can see 
you it will be a great satisfaction. Don't 
fancy I am " prostrated/' I have enough to 
do for the boy and myself in carrying out her 
wishes. He is better than one would have 
thought, and behaves dearly to me. Every- 
body has been very kind. 

Tell dear Mrs. Sartoris that I know her 
heart and thank her with all mine. After 
my day or two at London I shall go to some 
quiet place in France to get right again, and 
then stay some time at Paris in order to find 
out leisurely what it will be best to do for 
Peni — but eventually I shall go to England, 
I suppose. I don't mean to live with any- 



LETTER TO MISS HAW OR TIL 361 

body, even my own family, but to occupy my- 
self thoroughly, seeing dear friends, however, 
like you. God bless you. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

Robert BrowninGo 

The second is addressed to Miss Haworth. 

Florence, July 20, 1861. 

My dear Friend, — I well know you feel 
as you say, for her once and for me now. Isa 
Blagden, perfect in all kindness to me, will 
have told you something perhaps — and one 
day I shall see you and be able to tell you 
myself as much as I can. The main comfort 
is that she suffered very little pain, none be- 
side that ordinarily attending the simple at- 
tacks of cold and cough she was subject to — 
had no presentiment of the result whatever, 
and was consequently spared the misery of 
knowing she was about to leave us ; she 
was smilingly assuring me she was " better," 
" quite comfortable — if I would but come to 
bed," to within a few minutes of the last. 



362 ROBERT BROWNING. 

I think I foreboded evil at Komej certainly 
from the beginning of the week's illness — 
but when I reasoned about it, there was no 
justifying fear — she said on the last evening, 
" It is merely the old attack, not so severe a 
one as that of two years ago — there is no 
doubt I shall soon recover," and we talked 
over plans for the summer, and next year. I 
sent the servants away and her maid to bed 
— so little reason for disquietude did there 
seem. Through the night she slept heavily, 
and brokenly — that was the bad sign — but 
then she would sit up, take her medicine, say 
unrepeatable things to me, and sleep again. 
At four o'clock there were symptoms that 
alarmed me. I called the maid and sent for 
the doctor. She smiled as I proposed to 
bathe her feet, " Well, you are determined to 
make an exaggerated case of it ! " Then came 
what my heart will keep till I see her again 
and longer — the most perfect expression of 
her love to me within my whole knowledge 
of her. Always smilingly, happily, and with a 
face like a girl's — and in a few minutes she 



MRS. BROWNING'S LAST HOURS. 3G3 

died in my arms ; her head on my cheek. 
These incidents so sustain me that I tell them 
to her beloved ones as their right : there was 
no lingering, nor acute pain, nor conscious- 
ness of separation, but God took her to him- 
self as you would lift a sleeping child from 
a dark, uneasy bed into your arms and the 
light. Thank God. Annunziata thought by 
her earnest ways with me, happy and smiling 
as they were, that she must have been aware 
of our parting's approach — but she was 
quite conscious, had words at command, and 
yet did not even speak of Peni, who was in 
the next room. Her last word was when I 
asked '' How do you feel ? " — " Beautiful." 
You know I have her dearest wishes and 
interests to attend to at once — her child to 
care for, educate, establish properly ; and my 
own life to fulfill as properly — all just as 
she would require were she here. I shall 
leave Italy altogether for years — go to Lon- 
don for a few days' talk with Arabel — then 
go to my father and begin to try leisurely 
what will be best for Peni — but no more 



364 ROBERT BROWNING. 



u 



housekeeping " for me, even with my fam- 
ily. I shall grow, still, I hope — but my root 
is taken and remains. 

I know you always loved her, and me too 
in my degree. I shall always be grateful to 
those w^ho loved her, and that, I repeat, you 
did. 

She was, and is, lamented with extraordi- 
nary demonstrations, if one consider it. The 
Italians seem to have understood her by an 
instinct. I have received strange kindness 
from everybody. Pen is very well — very 
dear and good, anxious to comfort me as he 
calls it. He can't know his loss yet. After 
years, his will be worse than mine — he will 
want what he never had — that is, for the 
time when he could be helped by her wisdom, 
and genius and piety. I have had every- 
thing and shall not forget. 

God bless you, dear friend. I believe I 
shall set out in a week. Isa ofoes with me — 
dear, true heart. You, too, would do what 
you could for us were you here and your 
assistance needful. A letter from you came a 



DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND. 365 

day or two before the end — she made me 
inquire about the Frescobaldi Palace for 
you — Isa wrote to you in consequence. I 
shall be heard of at 151 rue de Grenelle St. 
Germain. 

Faithfully and affectionately yours, 

Egbert Browning. 

The first of these displays even more self- 
control, it might be thought less feeling, than 
the second ; but it illustrates the reserve which^ 
I believe, habitually characterized Mr. Brown- 
ing's attitude towards men. His natural, and 
certainly most complete, confidants were wo- 
men. At about the end of July he left Flor- 
ence with his son ; also accompanied by Miss 
Blagden, who traveled with them as far as 
Paris. She herself must soon have returned 
to Italy ; since he wrote to her in September 
on the subject of his wife's provisional disin- 
terment,^ in a manner which shows her to have 
been on the spot. 

^ Required for the subsequent placing of the monument 
designed by F. Leighton. 



366 ROBERT BROWNING, 

September, 1861. 

. . o Isa, may I ask you one favor ? Will 
you, whenever these dreadful prehmmaries, 
the provisional removement, etc., when they 
are proceeded with — will you do — all you 
can — suggest every regard to decency and 
proper feeling to the persons concerned? I 
have a horror of that man of the graveyard, 
and needless publicity and exposure — I rely 
on you, dearest friend of ours, to at least lend 
us your influence when the time shall come — 
a word may be invaluable. If there is any 
show made, or gratification of strangers' curi- 
osity, far better that I had left the turf un- 
touched. These things occur through sheer 
thoughtlessness, carelessness, not anything 
worse, but the efPect is irreparable. I won't 
think any more of it — now — at least. . . . 

The dread expressed in this letter of any 
offense to the delicacies of the occasion was 
too natural to be remarked upon here ; but it 
connects itself with an habitual aversion for 
the paraphernalia of death, which was a marked 



ATTITUDE TOWARDS DEATH. 367 

peculiarity of Mr. Browning's nature. He 
shrank, as his wife had done, from the " earth- 
side " of the portentous change ; but truth 
compels me to own that her infinite pity had 
little or no part in his attitude towards it. 
For him, a body from which the soul had 
passed held nothing of the person whose 
earthly vesture it had been. He had no sym- 
pathy for the still human tenderness with 
which so many of us regard the mortal re- 
mains of those they have loved, or with the 
solemn or friendly interest in which that ten- 
derness so often reflects itself in more neutral 
minds. He would claim all respect for the 
corpse, but he would turn away from it. An- 
other aspect of this feeling shows itself in a 
letter to one of his brothers-in-law, Mr. Georsre 
Moulton-Barrett, in reference to his wife's 
monument, with which Mr. Barrett had pro- 
fessed himself pleased. His tone is character- 
ized by an almost religious reverence for the 
memory which that monument enshrines. He 
nevertheless writes : — 

" I hope to see it one day — and, although 



368 ROBERT BROWNING. 

I have no kind of concern as to where the old 
clothes of myself shall be thrown, yet, if my 
fortune be such, and my survivors be not un- 
duly troubled, I should like them to lie in the 
place I have retained there. It is no matter., 
however." 

The letter is dated October 19, 1866. He 
never saw Florence again. 

Mr. Browning spent two months with his 
father and sister at St.-Enogat, near Dinard, 
from which place the letter to Miss Blagden 
was written ; and then proceeded to London, 
where his w^ife's sister. Miss Arabel Barrett, 
was living. He had declared in his grief that 
he would never keep house again, and he be- 
gan his solitary life in lodgings which at his 
request she had engaged for him ; but the dis- 
comfort of this arrangement soon wearied him 
of it ; and before many months had passed, 
he had sent to Florence for his furniture, and 
settled himself in the house in Warwick Cres- 
cent, which possessed, besides other advan- 
tages, that of being close to Delamere Terrace, 
where Miss Barrett had taken up her abode. 



ESTABLISHMENT IN LONDON 369 

This first period of Mr. Browning's widowed 
life was one of unutterable dreariness, in which 
the smallest and yet most unconquerable ele- 
ment was the prosaic ughness of everythino- 
which surrounded him. It was fifteen years 
since he had spent a winter in England ; he 
had never spent one in London. There had 
been nothing to break for him the transition 
from the stately beauty of Florence to the 
impressions and associations of the Harrow 
and Edgware Roads, and of Paddington Green. 
He might have escaped this neighborhood by 
way of Westbourne Terrace; but his walks 
constantly led him in an easterly direction ; 
and whether in an unconscious hugo-ino- of 
his chains, or, as was more probable, from the 
desire to save time, he would drag his aching 
heart and reluctant body through the sordid- 
ness or the squalor of this short cut, rather 
than seek the pleasanter thoroughfares which 
were open to him. Even the prettiness of 
Warwick Crescent was neutraHzed for him by 
the atmosphere of low or ugly life which en- 
compassed it on almost every side. His haunt- 



370 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing dream was one day to have done with it 
all ; to have fulfilled his mission with his son, 
educated him, launched him in a suitable 
career, and to go back to sunshine and beauty 
again. He learned by degrees to regard Lon= 
don as a home ; as the only fitting centre for 
the varied enero^ies which were revivinof in 
him ; to feel pride and pleasure in its increas- 
ingly picturesque character. He even learned 
to appreciate the outlook from his house — 
that " second from the bridge " of which so 
curious a presentment had entered into one of 
the poems of the " Men and Women " ^ — in 
spite of the refuse of humanity which would 
sometimes yell at the street corner, or fling 
stones at his plate-glass. But all this had to 
come ; and it is only fair to admit that twenty- 
nine years ago the beauties of which I have 
spoken were in great measure to come also. 
He could not then in any mood have ex- 
claimed, as he did to a friend two or three 
years ago : " Shall we not have a pretty Lon- 
don if things go on in this way?" They 

- Hoio it strikes a Contemporary. 



A SACRED TRUST. 371 

were driving on the Kensington side of Hyde 
Park. 

The paternal duty, which, so much against 

his inclination, had established Mr. Brownino- 
. & 

m England, would in every case have lain 

very near to his conscience and to his heart ; 
but it especially urged itself upon them 
through the absence of any injunction con- 
cerning it on his wife's part. No farewell 
words of hers had commended their child to 
his father's love and care; and thouo-h he 
may, for the moment, have imputed this fact 
to unconsciousness of her approaching death, 
his deeper insight soon construed the silence 
into an expression of trust, more binding upon 
him than the most earnest exacted promise 
could have been. The growing boy's educa- 
tion occupied a considerable part of his time 
and thoughts, for he had determined not to 
send him to school, but, as far as possible, 
himself prepare him for the University. He 
must also, in some degree, have supervised 
his recreations. He had therefore, for the 
present, little leisure for social distractions, 



372 ROBERT BROWNING. 

and probably at first very little inclination for 
them. His plan of life and duty, and the 
sense of responsibility attendant on it, had 
been communicated to Madame du Quaire in 
a letter written also from St.-Enogat. 

M. Chauvin, St.-Enogat pres Dinard, 
Ile et Vilaine, August 17, 1861. 

Dear Madame du Quaire, — I got your 
note on Sunday afternoon, but found myself 
unable to call on you as I had been intending 
to do. Next morning I left for this place 
(near St.-Malo, but I give what they say is the 
proper address). I want first to beg you to 
forgive my withholding so long your Httle 
oval mirror — it is safe in Paris, and I am 
vexed at having stupidly forgotten to bring it 
when I tried to see you. I shall stay here till 
the autumn sets in, then return to Paris for a 
few days — the first of which will be the best, 
if I can see you in the course of it — after- 
ward, I settle in London. 

When I meant to pass the winter in Paris, 
I hoped, the first thing almost, to be near you 



LETTER TO MADAME DU QUAIRE. 373 

— it now seems to me, however, that the best 
course for the Boy is to begin a good EngHsh 
education at once. I shall take quiet lodgings 
(somewhere near Kensington Gardens, I rather 
think) and get a Tutor. I want, if I can (ac- 
cording to my present very imperfect know- 
ledge) to get the poor little fellow fit for the 
University without passing through a Public 
School. I, myself, could never have done 
much by either process, but he is made differ- 
ently — imitates and emulates and all that. 
How I should be grateful if you would help 
me by any word that should occur to you ! I 
may easily do wrong, begin ill, through too 
much anxiety — perhaps, however, all may be 
easier than seems to me just now. 

I shall have a great comfort in talking to 
you — this writing is stiff, ineffectual work. 
Pen is very well, cheerful now — has his lit- 
tle horse here. The place is singularly un- 
spoiled, fresh and picturesque, and lovely to 
heart's content. I wish you were here ! — and 
if you knew exactly what such a wish means^ 



374 ROBERT BROWNING. 

you would need no assuring in addition that 
I am 

Yours affectionately and gratefully ever, 

Robert BrowninGc 

The person of whom he saw most was his 
sister-in-law, whom he visited, I beHeve, every 
evenino^. Miss Barrett had been a favorite 
sister of Mrs. Browning's, and this constituted 
a sufficient title to her husband's affection. 
But she was also a woman to be loved for her 
own sake. Deeply religious and very charita- 
ble, she devoted herself to visiting the poor — 
a form of philanthropy which was then neither 
so widespread nor so fashionable as it has 
since become ; and she founded, in 1850, the 
first Training School or Kefuge which had 
ever existed for destitute little girls. It need 
hardly be added that Mr. and Miss Browning 
cooperated in the work. The little poem, 
"The Twins," republished in 1855 in "Men 
g.nd Women," was first printed (with Mrs. 
Brownino;'s " Plea for the Ra«;ofed Schools of 
London ") for the benefit of this Refuge. It 



LETTER TO MISS BLAG DEN. 375 

was in Miss Barrett's company that Mr. Brown- 
inof used to attend the church of Mr. Thomas 
JoneSj to a volume of whose " Sermons and 
Addresses " he wrote a short introduction in 
1884. 

On February 15, 1862, lie writes again to 
Miss Blao^den : — 

February 15, 1862. 

. o . While I write, my heart is sore for a 
great calamity just befallen poor Rossetti, 
which I only heard of last night — his wife, 
who had been, as an invalid, in the habit of 
taking laudanum, swallowed an overdose — 
was found by the poor fellow on his return 
from the workingmen's class in the evening, 
under the effects of it — help was called in, 
the stomach-pump used ; but she died in the 
night, about a week ago. There has hardly 
been a day when I have not thought, " If I 
can, to-morrow, I will go and see him, and 
thank him for his book, and return his sister's 
poems." Poor, dear fellow ! . . . 

. . . Have I not written a long letter, for 
me who hate the sight of a pen now, and see 



376 ROBERT BROWNING. 

a pile of unanswered things on the table be^ 
fore me ? — on this very table. Do you tell 
me in turn all about yourself. I shall be in- 
terested in the minutest thing you put down. 
What sort of weather is it ? You cannot but 
be better at your new villa than in the large 
solitary one. There I am again, going up the 
winding way to it, and seeing the herbs in red 
flower, and the butterflies on the top of the 
waU under the olive-trees ! Once more, good- 
by. . . . 

The hatred of writing of which he here 
speaks refers probably to the class of letters 
which he had lately been called u23on to an- 
swer, and which must have been painful in 
proportion to the kindness by which they were 
inspired. But it returned to him many years 
later, in simple weariness of the mental and 
mechanical act, and with such force that he 
would often answer an unimportant note in 
person, rather than make the seemingly much 
smaller exertion of doing so mth his pen. It 
was the more remarkable that, with the rarest 



AT CAMBO AND BIARRITZ. 377 

exceptions, he replied to every letter which 
came to hini. 

The late summer of the former year had 
been entirely unrefreshing, in spite of his ac- 
knowledo'ment of the charms of St.-Enoor-at. 
There was more distraction and more soothing^ 
in the stay at Cambo and Biarritz, which was 
chosen for the holiday of 1862. Years after- 
wards, when the thouo;ht of Italy carried with 
it less longing and even more pain, Mr. 
Browning would speak of a visit to the Pyre- 
nees, if not a residence among them, as one of 
the restful possibilities of his later and freer 
life. He wrote to Miss Blao^den : — 

Biarritz, Maison Gastonbide, Septemher 19, 1862. 

... I stayed a month at green pleasant 
little Cambo, and then came here from pure 
inability to go elsewhere — St.-Jean de Luz, 
on which I had reckoned, being still fuller of 
Spaniards who profit by the new railway. This 
place is crammed with gay people, of whom 
I see nothing but their outsides. The sea, 
sands, and view of the Spanish coast and 
mountains are superb, and this house is on the 



378 ROBERT BROWNING. 

town's outskirts. I stay till the end of the 
month, then go to Paris, and then get my 
neck back into the old collar again. Pen has 
managed to get more enjoyment out of his 
holida}" than seemed at first likely — there 
was a nice French family at Cambo with 
wdiom he fraternized, riding with the son and 
escorting the daughter in her walks. His 
red cheeks look as they should. For. me, I 
have got on by having a great read at Eu- 
ripides — the one book I brought with me, 
besides attending to my own matters, my new 
poem that is about to be ; and of which the 
whole is pretty well in my head — the Ro- 
man murder story you know. 

. . . How I yearn, yearn for Italy at the 
close of my life ! . . . 

The " Roman murder story " was, I need 
hardly say, to become " The Ring and the 
Book." 

It has often been told, though with curious 
confusion as regards the date, how Mr. 
Browning picked up the original parchment- 
bound record of the Franceschini case on a 



AN INCUBATIVE PROCESS. 379 

stall of the Piazza San Lorenzo. We read in 
the first section of his own work that he 
plunged instantly into the study of this rec- 
ord ; that he had mastered it by the end of 
the day ; and that he then stepped out on to 
the terrace of his house amid the sultry black- 
ness and silent lightnings of the June nighty 
as the adjacent church of San Felice sent 
forth its chants, and voices buzzed in the 
street below, — and saw the tragedy as a liv- 
ing picture unfold itself before him. These 
were his last days at Casa Guidi. It was four 
years before he definitely began the work. 
The idea of converting the story into a poem 
cannot even have occurred to him for some 
little time, since he offered it for prose treat- 
ment to Miss Ogle, the author of " A Lost 
Love ; " and for poetic use, I am almost cer- 
tain, to one of his leading contemporaries. It 
was this slow process of incubation which gave 
so much force and distinctness to his ultimate 
presentment of the characters ; though it in- 
fused a large measure of personal imagination, 
and, as we shall see, of personal reminiscence, 
into their historical truth. 



380 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Before " The Ring^ and the Book " was ac- 
tually begun, " Dramatis Personse " was to 
be completed. Their production had been 
delayed during Mrs. Browning's lifetime, and 
necessarily interrupted by her death ; but we 
hear of the work as progressing steadily dur- 
ing this summer of 1862. 

A painful subject of correspondence had 
been also for some time engaging Mr. Brown- 
ing's thoughts and pen. A letter to Miss 
Blagden, written January 19, 1863, is so ex- 
pressive of his continued attitude towards the 
questions involved that, in spite of its strong 
language, his family advise its publication. 
The name of the person referred to will alone 
be omitted. 

..." Ever since I set foot in England I 
have been pestered with applications for leave 
to write the Life of my wife — I have refused 
— and there an end. I have last w^eek re- 
ceived two communications from friends, in- 
closing the letters of a certain . . . of . . ., 
asking them for details of life and letters, for 
a biography he is engaged in — adding, that 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDISCRETION. 381 

he ' has secured the correspondence with her 
old friend . . .' Think of this beast work= 
ing away at this, not deeming my feeHngs or 
those of her family worthy of notice — and 
meaning to print letters written years and 
years ago, on the most intimate and personal 
subjects, to an ' old friend ' — which, at the 
poor . . . [friend's] death fell into the hands 
of at complete stranger, who at once wanted to 
print them, but desisted through Ba's earnest 
expostulation enforced by my own threat to 
take law proceedings — as fortunately letters 
are copyright. I find this woman died last 
year, and her son writes to me this morning 
that . . . got them from him as autographs 
merely — he will try and get them back. . . ., 
evidently a blackguard, got my letter, which 
gave him his deserts, on Saturday — no an- 
swer yet — if none comes, I shall be forced 
to advertise in the ' Times,' and obtain an 
injunction. But what I suffer in feeling the 
hands of these blackguards (for I forgot to 
say another man has been making similar ap- 
plications to friends), what I undergo with 



382 ROBERT BROWNING. 

their paws in my very bowels, you can guess, 
and God knows ! No friend, of course, would 
ever give up the letters — if anybody ever is 
forced to do that which she would have 
writhed under — if it ever were necessar}^ 
why, / should be forced to do it, and, with any 
good to her memory and fame, my own pain 
in the attempt would be turned into joy — I 
should do it at whatever cost : but it is not 
only unnecessary but absurdly useless — and, 
indeed, it shall not be done if I can stop the 
scamp's knavery along with his breath. 

" I am going to reprint the Greek Christian 
Poets and another essay — nothing that ought 
to be published shall be kept back — and this 
she certainly intended to correct, augment, and 
reproduce — but / open the doubled-up pa- 
per ! Warn any one you may think needs the 
warning of the utter distress in which I should 
be placed were this scoundrel, or any other of 
the sort, to baffle me and bring out the let- 
ters — I can't prevent fools from uttering 
their folly upon her life, as they do on every 
other subject, but the law protects property — 



EXACTIONS OF BIOGRAPHY. 383 

as these letters are. Only last week, or so, the 
Bishop of Exeter stopped the publication o£ an 
announced ' Life ' — containing^ extracts from 
his correspondence — and so I shall do." . « . 

Mr. Browning only resented the exactions 
of modern biography in the same degree as 
most other right-minded persons ; but there 
was, to his thinking, something especially un- 
generous in dragging to light any immature 
or unconsidered utterance which the writer's 
later judgment would have disclaimed. Early 
work was always for him included in this cat- 
egory ; and here it was possible to disagree 
with him ; since the promise of genius has a 
leo^itimate interest from which no distance 
from its subsequent fulfillment can detract. 
But there could be no disagreement as to the 
rights and decencies involved in the present 
case ; and, as we hear no more of the letters 
to Mr. . . ., we may perhaps assume that their 
intending publisher was acting in ignorance, 
but did not wdsh to act in defiance, of Mr. 
Browninof's feelino^ in the matter. 

In the course of this year, 1863, Mr. Brown- 



384 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing brought out, through Chapman and Hall, 
the still well-known and well-loved three-vol- 
ume edition of his works, including " Sor- 
dello," but again excluding " Pauline." A 
selection of his poems which appeared some- 
what earlier, if we may judge by the preface, 
dated November, 1862, deserves mention as a 
tribute to friendship. The volume had been 
prepared by John Forster and Bryan Waller 
Procter (Barry Cornwall), " two friends," as 
the preface states, " who from the first appear- 
ance of ' Paracelsus ' have regarded its writer 
as among the few great poets of the century." 
Mr. Browning had long before signalized his 
feeling for Barry Cornwall by the dedication 
of " Colombe's Birthday." He discharged 
the present debt to Mr. Procter, if such there 
was, by the attentions which he rendered to 
his infirm old age. For many years he visited 
him every Sunday, in spite of a deafness ulti- 
mately so complete that it was only possible to 
converse with him in writinof. These visits 
were afterwards, at her urgent request, contin- 
ued to Mr. Procter's widow. 



CHAPTER XV. 

1863-1869. 

Pornic. — "James Lee's Wife." — Meeting at Mr. F. Pal- 
grave's. — Letters to Miss Blagden. — His own Estimate 
of his Work. — His Father's Illness and Death ; Miss 
Browning. — Le Croisle. — Academic Honors; Letter to 
the Master of Balliol. — Death of Miss Barrett. — Audi- 
erne. — Uniform Edition of his Works. — His risino: Fame. 
— "Dramatis Personse." — "The Ring and the Book;" 

Character of Pompilia. 

• 

The most constant contributions to Mr, 
Browning's history are supplied during the 
next eight or nine years by extracts from his 
letters to Miss Blagden. Our next will be 
dated from Ste.-Marie, near Pornic, where he 
and his family again spent their holiday in 
1864 and 1865. Some idea of the life he led 
there is given at the close of a letter to Fred- 
eric Leigh ton, August 17, 1863, in which he 
says : — 

" I live upon milk and fruit, bathe daily, do 



38G ROBERT BROWNING. 

a good morning's work, read a little with Pen 
and somewhat more by myself, go to bed early, 
and get up early ish — rather Hking it all." 

This mention of a diet of milk and fruit re- 
calls a favorite habit of Mr. Browning's : that 
of almost renouncing animal food whenever he 
went abroad. It was partly promoted by the 
inferior quality of foreign meat, and showed 
no sign of specially agreeing with him, at all 
events in his later years, when he habitually 
returned to England looking thinner and more 
haggard than before he left it. But the 
change was always congenial to his taste. 

A fuller picture of these simple, peaceful, 
and poetic Pornic days comes to us through 
Miss Blagden, August 18 : — 

..." This is a wild little place in Brittany, 
something like that village where we stayed 
last year. Close to the sea — a hamlet of a 
dozen houses, perfectly lonely — one may walk 
on the edge of the low rocks by the sea for 
miles. Our house is the Mayor's, large 
enough, clean and bare. If I could, I would 
stay just as I am for many a day. I feel out 



PORNIC. 387 

of the very earth sometimes as I sit here at 
the window ; with the Httle church, a field, a 
few houses, and the sea. On a weekday there 
is nobody in the viUage, plenty of haystacks, 
cows, and fowls ; all our butter, eggs, milk, are 
produced in the farmhouse. Such a soft sea, 
and such a mournful wind ! 

" I wrote a poem yesterday of 120 lines, and 
mean to keep writing whether I like it or 
not." . . . 

That "window" was the "Doorway" in 
"James Lee's Wife." The sea, the field, and 
the fig-tree were visible from it. 

A long interval in the correspondence, at 
all events so far as we are concerned, carries 
us to the December of 1864, and then Mr. 
Browning wrote : — 

..." On the other hand, I feel such com- 
fort and delight in doing the best I can with 
my own object of life, poetry — which, I think, 
I never could have seen the good of before, 
that it shows me I have taken the root I did 
take welL I hope to do much more yet — 
and that the flower of it will be put into Her 



388 ROBERT BROWNING. 

hand somehow. I really have great opportu- 
nities and advantages — on the whole, almost 
unprecedented ones — I think, no other dis- 
turbances and cares than those I am most 
grateful for being allowed to have." . . . 

One of our very few written reminiscences 
of Mr. Browning's social life refers to this 
year, 1864, and to the evening, February 
12, on which he signed his will in the pres- 
ence of Mr. Francis Palgrave and Alfred Ten- 
nyson. It is inscribed in the diary of Mr. 
Thomas Richmond, then chaplain to St. 
George's Hospital ; and Mr. Reginald Pal- 
grave has kindly procured me a copy of it. 
A brilliant party had met at dinner at the 
house of Mr. F. Palgrave, York Gate, Re- 
gent's Park ; Mr. Richmond, having fulfilled 
a prior engagement, had joined it later. 
'' There were, in order," he says, " round the 
dinner-table (dinner being over), Gifford Pal- 
grave, Tennyson, Dr. John Ogle, Sir Francis 
H. Doyle, Frank Palgrave, W. E. Gladstone, 
Browning, Sir John Simeon, Monsignor Pat- 
terson, Woolner, and Reginald Palgrave." 



MEETING AT MR. PALGRAVE'S. 389 

Mr. Kichmond closes his entry by saying 
he will never forgfet that evening". The names 
of those whom it had brought together, al- 
most all to be sooner or later numbered among 
the poet's friends, were indeed enough to 
stamp it as worthy of recollection. One or 
two characteristic utterances of Mr. Browning 
are, however, the only ones which it seems 
advisable to repeat here. The conversation 
having turned on the celebration of the 
Shakespeare ter-centenary, he said : " Here 
we are called upon to acknowledge Shake- 
speare, we who have him in our very bones 
and blood, our very selves. The very recog- 
nition of Shakespeare's merits by the commit- 
tee reminds me of nothing so apt as an illus- 
tration as the decree of the Directoire that 
men might acknowledge God." 

Among the subjects discussed was the ad- 
visability of making schoolboys write Eng- 
lish verses as well as Latin and Greeko 
" Woolner and Sir Francis Doyle were for 
this ; Gladstone and Browning against it." 

Work had now found its fitting place in 



390 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the poet's life. It was no longer the over- 
flow of an irresistible productive energy ; it 
was the deliberate direction of that energy 
towards an appointed end. We hear some- 
thing of his own feeling concerning this in a 
letter of August, 1865, again from Ste.-Marie, 
and called forth by some gossip concerning 
him which Miss Blagden had connected with 
his then growing fame. 

. . . "I suppose that what you call ' my 
fame within these four years ' comes from a 
little of this gossiping and going about, and 
showing myself to be alive : and so indeed 
some folks say — but I hardly think it : for 
remember I was uninterruptedly (almost) in 
London from the time I published ' Paracel- 
sus ' till I ended that string of plays with 
' Luria ' — and I used to go out then, and 
see far more of merely literary people, critics, 
etc., than I do now — but what came of it ? 
There were always a few people who had a 
certain opinion of my poems, but nobody 
cared to speak what he thought, or the things 
printed twenty-five years ago would not have 



HIS LITERARY POSITION. 391 

waited so long for a good word ; but at last 
a new set of men arrive who don't mind the 
conventionalities of ignoring one and seeing 
everything in another. Chapman says ' the 
new orders come from Oxford and Cam- 
bridge/ and all my new cultivators are young 
men ; more than that, I observe that some of 
my old friends don't like at all the irruption 
of outsiders who rescue me from their sober 
and private approval, and take those words 
out of their mouths ' which they always 
meant to say ' and never did. When there 
gets to be a general feeling of this kind, that 
there must be something in the works of an 
author, the reviews are obliged to notice him, 
such notice as it is — but what poor work, 
even when doing its best ! I mean poor in 
the failure to give a general notion of the 
whole works ; not a particular one of such and 
such points therein. As I begun, so I shall 
end — taking my own course, pleasing myself 
or aiming at doing so, and thereby, I hope, 
pleasing God. 

" As I never did otherwise, I never had 



392 ROBERT BROWNING. 

any fear as to what I did going ultimately to 
the bad — hence in collected editions I al- 
ways reprinted everything, smallest and great- 
est. Do you ever see, by the way, the num- 
bers of the selection which Moxons publish ? 
They are exclusively poems omitted in that 
other selection by Forster ; it seems Httle use 
sending them to you, but when they are com- 
pleted, if they give me a few copies, you shall 
have one if vou hke. Just before I left Lon- 
don, Macmillan was anxious to print a third 
selection for his Golden Treasury, which 
should of course be different from either — 
but three seem too absurd. There, enough 
of me. 

" I certainly will do my utmost to make the 
most of my poor self before I die ; for one 
reason, that I may help old Pen the better ; 
I w^as much struck by the kind ways and in- 
terest shown in me by the Oxford undergrad- 
uates — those introduced to me by Jowett. 
I am sure they would be the more helpful to 
my son. So, good luck to my great venture, 
the murder-poem, which I do hope will strike 
you and all good lovers of mine." . . . 



HIS OWN ESTIMATE OF HIS WORK. 393 

We cannot wonder at the touch of bitter- 
ness with which Mr. Browning dwells on the 
long neglect which he had sustained ; but it 
is at first sight difficult to reconcile this hio-h 
positive estimate of the value of his poetry 
with the relative depreciation of his own poetic 
genius which constantly marks his attitude 
towards that of his wife. The facts are, 
however, quite compatible. He regarded Mrs. 
Browning's genius as greater, because more 
spontaneous, than his own : owing less to life 
and its opportunities ; but he judged his own 
work as the more important, because of the 
larger knowledge of life which had entered 
into its production. He was wrong in the 
first terms of his comparison : for he under- 
rated the creative, hence spontaneous element 
in his own nature, while claiming primarily 
the position of an observant thinker ; and he 
overrated the amount of creativeness implied 
by the poetry of his wife. He failed to see 
that, given her intellectual endowments, and 
the lyric gift, the characteristics of her genius 
were due to circumstances as much as those of 



394 ROBERT BROWNING. 

his own. Actual life is not the only source 
of poetic inspiration, though it may, perhaps, 
be the best. Mrs. Browning as a poet be- 
came what she was, not in spite of her long 
seclusion, but by help of it. A touching par- 
agraph, bearing upon this subject, is dated 
October, 1865. 

..." Another thing. I have just been 
making a selection of Ba's poems which is 
wanted — how I have done it, I can hardly 
say — it is one dear delight to know that the 
work of her goes on more effectually than 
ever — her books are more and more read — 
certainly, sold. A new edition of ' Aurora 
Leigh ' is completely exhausted within this 
year." . . . 

Of the thing next dearest to his memory, 
his Florentine home, he had written in the 
January of this year : — 

..." Yes, Florence will never be my Flor- 
ence again. To build over or beside Poggio 
seems barbarous and inexcusable. The Fiesole 
side don't matter. Are they going to pull the 
old walls down, or any part of them, I want to 



THE LEGEND OF PORNIC. 395 

know ? Why can't they keep the old city as 
a nucleus and build round and round it, as 
many rings of houses as they please — fram- 
ing the picture as deeply as they please ? Is 
Casa Guidi to be turned into any Public Of- 
fice ? I should think that its natural destina- 
tion. If I am at liberty to flee away one day, 
it will not be to Florence, I dare say. As old 
Philipson said to me once of Jerusalem — 
' No, I don't w^ant to go there — I can see it 
in my head.' . . . Well, good-by, dearest Isa. 
I have been for a few minutes — nay, a good 
many — so really with you in Florence that 
it would be no wonder if you heard my steps 
up the lane to your house." . . . 

Part of a letter written in the September of 
1865 from Ste.-Marie may be interesting as 
referring to the legend of Pornic included in 
" Dramatis Personse." 

..." I suppose my ' poem ' which you say 
brings me and Pornic together in your mind, 
is the one about the poor girl — if so, ' fancy ' 
(as I hear you say) they have pulled down the 
church since I arrived last month — there are 



396 ROBERT BROWNING. 

only the shell-like, roofless walls left, for a 
few weeks more ; it was very old — built on 
a natural base of rock — small enough, to be 
sure — so they build a smart new one behind 
it, and down goes this ; just as if they could 
not have pitched down their brick and stucco 
farther away, and left the old place for the 
fishermen — so here — the church is even 
more picturesque — and certain old Norman 
ornaments, capitals of pillars and the like, 
which we left erect in the doorway, are at this 
moment in a heap of rubbish by the roadside. 
The people here are good, stupid, and dirty, 
without a touch of the sense of picturesque- 
ness in their clodpolls." . . . 

The little record continues through 1866. 

February 19, 1866. 

... I go out a great deal ; but have en- 
joyed nothing so much as a dinner last week 
with Tennyson, who, with his wife and one 
son, is staying in town for a few weeks — and 
she is just what she was and always will be — 
very sweet and dear : he seems to me better 



HIS FATHER'S ILLXESS AXD DEATH. 397 

than ever. I met him at a large party on 
Saturday — also Carlyle, whom I never met at 
a ^^ drum " before. . . . Pen is drawing: our 
owl — a bird that is the light of our house, 
for his tameness and engaging ways. . . . 

May 19, 1866. 

. . . My father has been unwell — he is 
better and will o'o into the countrv the mo- 
ment the east winds allow — for in Paris^ 
as here, there is a razor wrapped up in 
the flannel of sunshine. I hope to hear pres- 
ently from my sister, and will tell vou if 
a letter comes : he is eio-htv-five, almost — 
you see ! otherwise his wonderful constitution 
would keep me from inordinate apprehension. 
His mind is absolutely as I always remember 
it — and the other day when I wanted some 
information about a point of medicieval his- 
torv, he wrote a reo-ular bookful of nates and 
extracts thereabout. . . . 

June 20, 1866. 

My dearest Isa, I was telegraphed for to 
Paris last week, and arrived time enough to 



398 ROBERT BROWNING. 

pass twenty-four hours more with my father : 
he died on the 14th — quite exhausted by in- 
ternal hemorrhage, which would have overcome 
a man of thirty. He retained all his faculties 
to the last — was utterly indifferent to death 

— asking with surprise what it was we were 
affected about since he was perfectly happy ? 

— and kept his own strange sweetness of soul 
to the end. Nearly his last words to me, as I 
was fanning him, were, " I am so afraid that I 
fatigue you, dear " ! this, while his sufferings 
were great ; for the strength of his constitu- 
tion seemed impossible to be subdued. He 
wanted three weeks exactly to complete his 
eighty-fifth year. So passed aAvay this good, 
unworldly, kind-hearted, religious man, whose 
powers natural and acquired would so easily 
have made him a notable man, had he known 
what vanity or ambition or the love of money 
or social influence meant. As it is, he was 
known by half-a-dozen friends. He was wor- 
thy of being Ba's father — out of the whole 
world, only he, so far as my experience goes. 
She loved him — and he said, very recently, 



VEXATIOUS EXPERIENCE. 399 

while gazing at her portrait, that only that 
picture had put into his head that there might 
be such a thing as the worship of the images 
of saints. My sister will come and live with 
me henceforth. You see what she loses. 
All her life has been spent in caring for my 
mother, and seventeen years after that, my 
father. You may be sure she does not rave 
and rend hair like people who have plenty to 
atone for in the past ; but she loses very much. 
I returned to London last night. . . . 

During his hurried journey to Paris, Mr. 
Browning was mentally blessing the Emperor 
for having abolished the system of passports, 
and thus enabled him to reach his father's 
bedside in time. His early Italian journeys 
had brought him some vexatious experience of 
the old order of things. Once, at Venice, he 
had been mistaken for a well-known Liberal, 
Dr. Bowring, and found it almost impossible 
to get his passport vise; and, on another oc- 
casion, it aroused suspicion by being " too 
good ; " though in what sense I do not quite 
remember. 



400 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Miss Browning did come to live with her 
brother, and was thenceforward his inseparable 
companion. Her presence with him must 
therefore be understood wherever I have had 
no special reason for mentioning it. 

They tried Dinard for the remainder of the 
summer ; but finding it unsuitable, proceeded 
by St.-Malo to Le Croisic, the little seaside 
town of southeastern Brittany which two of 
Mr. Browning's poems have since rendered 
famous. 

The following extract has no date : — 

Le Croisic, Loire Infi^rieure. 
. . . We all found Dinard unsuitable, and 
after staying a few days at St.-Malo resolved 
to try this place, and well for us, since it 
serves our purpose capitally. . . . We are in 
the most delicious and peculiar old house I 
ever occupied, the oldest in the town — plenty 
of great rooms — nearly as much space as in 
Villa Alberti. The little tow^n and surround- 
ing country are wild and primitive, even a 
trifle beyond Pornic, perhaps. Close by is 



FIRST ACADEMIC HONORS. 401 

Batz, a village where the men dress in white 
from head to foot, with baggy breeches, and 
great black flap hats ; opposite is Guerande, 
the old capital of Bretagne : you have read 
about it in Balzac's "Beatrix" — and other 
interesting places are near. The sea is all 
round our peninsula, and on the whole I ex- 
pect we shall Hke it very much. . . . 

Later. 

. . . We enjoyed Croisic increasingly to the 
last — spite of three weeks' vile weather, in 
strikino^ contrast to the g^olden months at Por- 
nic last year. I often went to Guerande — 
once Sarianna and I walked from it in two 
hours and something under — nine miles ; 
though from our house, straight over the 
sands and sea, it is not half the distance. . . . 

In 1867 Mr. Browning received, his first 
and greatest academic honors. The M. A. 
degree by diploma, of the University of Ox- 
ford, was conferred on him in June ; ^ and in 

^ "Not a lower degree than that of D. C. L,, but a much 
higher honor, hardly given since Dr. Johnson's time except 
to kings and royal personages." ... So the Keeper of the 
Archives wrote to Mr. Browning at the time. 



402 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the month of October he was made honorary 
Fellow of Balliol College. Dr. Jowett allows 
me to publish the, as he terms it, very charac- 
teristic letter in which he acknowleclo:e(l the 
distinction. Dr. Scott, afterwards Dean of 
Rochester, was then Master of Balliol. 

19 Warwick Crescent, Octoler 21, 1867. 

Dear Dr. Scott, — I am altogether unable 
to say how I feel as to the fact you com- 
municate to me. I must know more inti- 
mately than you can how little worthy I am 
of such an honor — you can hardly set the 
value of that honor, you who give, as I who 
take it. 

Indeed, there are both " duties and emolu- 
ments " attached to this position, — duties of 
deep and lasting gratitude, and emoluments 
through which I shall be wealthy my life long. 
I have at least loved learning and the learned, 
and there needed no recognition of my love 
on their part to warrant my professing myself, 
as I do, dear Dr. Scott, yours ever most faith- 
fully, Robert Browning. 



DEATH OF MISS BARRETT. 403 

In the following year he received and de- 
clined the virtual offer of the Lord Rectorship 
of the University of St. Andrews, rendered 
vacant by the death of Mr. J. S. Mill. 

He returned wdth his sister to Le Croisic for 
the summer of 1867. 

In June, 1868, Miss Arabel Barrett died, of 
a rheumatic affection of the heart. As did 
her sister seven years before, she passed away 
in Mr. Browning's arms. He wrote the event 
to Miss Blagden as soon as it occurred, de- 
scribing also a curious circumstance attendant 
on it. 

im June, 1868. 

. . . You know I am not superstitious — 
here is a note I made in a book, Tuesday, 
July 21, 1863. " Arabel told me yesterday 
that she had been much agitated by a dream 
■which happened the night before, Sunday, 
July 19. She saw Her and asked ' When shall 
I be with you ? ' the reply was, ' Dearest, in 
five years,' whereupon Arabella woke. She 
knew in her dream that it was not to the liv- 
ing she spoke." In five years, within a 



404 ROBERT BROWNING. 

month of their completion — I had forgotten 
the date of the dream, and supposed it was 
only three years ago, and that two had still to 
run. Only a coincidence, but noticeable. . . . 

In August he writes again from Audierne, 
Finisterre (Brittany). 

..." You never heard of this place, I dare 
say. After staying a few days at Paris we 
started for Rennes — reached Vannes and 
halted a little — thence made for Auray, 
where we made excursions to Carnac, Lok- 
mariaker, and Ste.-Anne d' Auray ; all very 
interesting of their kind ; then saw Brest, 
Morlaix, St.-Pol de Leon, and the seaport 
Roscoff — our intended bathing place — it 
was full of folk, however, and otherwise im- 
practicable, so we had nothing for it, but to 
rehrousser chemin and get to the southwest 
again. At Quimper we heard (for a second 
time) that Audierne would suit us exactly, 
and to it we came — happily, for ' suit ' it cer° 
tainly does. Look on the map for the most 
westerly point of Bretagne — and of the main- 



AUDIERNE. 405 

land of Europe — there is niched Audierne, a 
dehghtful quite unspoiled little fishing-town, 
with the open ocean in front, and beautiful 
woods, hills and dales, meadows and lanes be- 
hind and around — sprinkled here and there 
with villao^es each with its fine old church. 
Sarianna and I have just returned from a four 
hours' walk, in the course of which we visited 
a town, Pont Croix, with a beautiful cathedral- 
like buildinof amid the cluster of clean brio;ht 
Breton houses — and a little farther is an- 
other church, ' Notre Dame de Comfort,' with 
only a hovel or two round it, worth the jour- 
ney from England to see ; we are therefore 
very well off — at an inn, I should say, with 
singularly good, kind, and liberal people, so 
have no cares for the moment. May you be 
doino^ as well ! The weather has been most 
propitious, and to-day is perfect to a wish. 
We bathe, but somewhat ingloriously, in a 
smooth creek of mill-pond quietude (there be- 
ing no cabins on the bay itself), unlike the 
great rushing waves of Croisic — the water is 
much colder." . . . 



406 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The tribute contained in this letter to the 
merits of le Pere Batifoulier and his wife 
would not, I think, be indorsed by the few 
other English travelers who have stayed at 
their inn. The writer's own genial and 
kindly spirit no doubt partly elicitsd, and 
still more supplied, the qualities he saw in 
them. 

The six-volume, so long known as "uni- 
form," edition of Mr. Browning's works was 
brought out in the autumn of this year by 
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. ; practically Mr. 
George Murray Smith, who was to be thence- 
forward his exclusive publisher and increas- 
ingly valued friend. In the winter months 
appeared the first two volumes (to be foUoAved 
in the ensuing spring by the third and fourth) 
of " The Ring and the Book." 

With "The Ring and the Book" Mr. 
Browning attained the full recognition of his 
genius. The " Athenaeum " spoke of it as 
the oinis inagnum of the g^eneration ; not 
merely beyond all parallel the supremest 
poetic achievement of the time, but the 



« THE RING AND THE BOOK:' 407 

most precious and profound spiritual treasure 
that England had produced since the days 
of Shakespeare. His popularity was yet to 
come, so also the widespread reading of his 
hitherto neglected poems ; but henceforth 
whatever he published was sure of ready 
acceptance, of just, if not always enthusias- 
tic, appreciation. The ground had not been 
gained at a single leap. A passage in an- 
other letter to Miss Blagden shows that, 
when ^* The Ring and the Book " appeared, 
a high place was already awaiting it outside 
those hio^her academic circles in which its 
author's position was secured. 

..." I want to get done with my poem. 
Booksellers are making me pretty offers for 
it. One sent to propose, last week, to pub- 
lish it at his risk, giving me all the profits, 
and pay me the whole in advance — ' for the 
incidental advantages of my name ' — the 
R. B. who for six months once did not sell 
one copy of the*^oems 1 I ask <£200 for the 
sheets to America, and shall get it." . . . 

His presence in England had doubtless 



408 ROBERT BROWNING. 

stimulated the public interest in his produc- 
tions ; and we may fairly credit " Dramatis 
Personse " with having finally awakened his 
countrymen of all classes to the fact that a 
great creative power had arisen among them. 
" The Ring and the Book " and " Dramatis 
Personse " cannot indeed be dissociated in 
what was the culminating moment in the 
author's poetic life, even more than the zenith 
of his literary career. In their expression of 
all that constituted the wide range and the 
characteristic quality of his genius, they at 
once support and supplement each other. 
But a fact of more distinctive biographical 
interest connects itself exclusively with the 
later work. 

We cannot read the emotional passages of 
" The Ring and the Book " without hearing 
in them a voice which is not Mr. Browning's 
own : an echo, not of his past, but from it. 
The remembrance of that past must have 
accompanied him through every stage of the 
great work. Its subject had come to him in 
the last days of his greatest happiness. It 



INSPIRATION OF POMP I LI A. 409 

had lived with him, though in the background 
of consciousness, through those of his keen- 
est sorrow. It was his refuge in that after- 
time, in which a subsiding grief often leaves 
a deeper sense of isolation. He knew the joy 
with which his wife would have witnessed the 
diligent performance of this his self-imposed 
task. The beautiful dedication contained in 
the first and last books was only a matter of 
course. But Mrs. Browning's spiritual pres- 
ence on this occasion was more than a presid- 
ing memory of the heart. I am convinced 
that it entered largely into the conception of 
Pompilia, and, so far as this depended on 
it, the character of the whole work. In the 
outward course of her history, Mr. Browning 
proceeded strictly on the ground of fact. His 
dramatic conscience would not have allowed it 
otherwise. He had read the record of the 
case, as he has been heard to say, fully eight 
times over before converting it into the sub- 
stance of his poem ; and the form in which 
he finally cast it was that which recom 
mended itself to him as true — which, within 



410 ROBERT BROWNING. 

certain limits, was true. The testimony of 
those who watched by Pompilia's death-bed 
is almost conclusive as to the absence of any 
criminal motive to her flight, or criminal ck- 
cumstance connected with it. Its time proved 
itself to have been that of her impending, 
perhaps newly expected motherhood, and may 
have had some reference to this fact. But 
the real Pompilia was a simple child, who 
lived in bodily terror of her husband, and had 
made repeated efforts to escape from him. 
Unless my memory much deceives me, her 
physical condition plays no part in the his- 
torical defense of her flight. If it appeared 
there at all, it was as a merely practical incen- 
tive to her striving to place herself in safety. 
The sudden rapturous sense of maternity 
which, in the poetic rendering of the case, 
becomes her impulse to self -protection, was 
beyond her age and her culture ; it was not 
suggested by the facts ; and, what is more 
striking, it was not a natural development 
of Mr. Browning's imagination concerning 
them. 



THE PARENTAL INSTINCT. 411 

The parental instinct was amon^ the weak- 
est in his nature — a fact which renders the 
more conspicuous his devotion to his own 
son ; it finds Uttle or no expression in his 
work. The apotheosis of motherhood which 
he puts forth through the aged priest in 
" Ivan Ivanovitch " was due to the poetic 
necessity of Ufting a ghastly human punish- 
ment into the sphere of Divine retribution. 
Even in the advancing years which soften the 
father into the grandfather, the essential qual- 
ity of early childhood was not that which ap- 
pealed to him. He would admire its flower- 
like beauty, but not linger over it. He had 
no special emotion for its helplessness. When 
he was attracted by a child it was through 
the evidence of something not only distinct 
from, but opposed to this. " It is the soul " 
(I see) " in that speck of a body," he said, not 
many years ago, of a tiny boy — now too big 
for it to be desirable that I should mention 
his name, but whose mother, if she reads 
this, will know to whom I allude — who had 
delighted him by an act of intelligent grace 



412 ROBERT BROWNING. 

which seemed beyond his years. The ingenu- 
ously unbounded maternal pride, the almost 
luscious maternal sentiment, of Pompiha's 
dying moments can only associate themselves 
in our mind with Mrs. Browning's personal 
utterances, and some notable -passages in 
" Casa Guidi Windows " and " Aurora 
Leigh." Even the exalted fervor of the in- 
vocation to Capon sacchi, its blending of 
spiritual ecstasy with half - realized earthly 
emotion, has, I think, no parallel in her hus- 
band's work. 

Pompiha bears still, unmistakably, the 
stamp of her author's genius. Only he could 
have imagined her peculiar form of conscious- 
ness ; her childlike, wondering, yet subtle 
perception of the anomalies of life. He has 
raised the woman in her from the typical to 
the individual by this distinguishing touch of 
his supreme originality ; and thus infused into 
her character a haunting pathos which renders 
it to many readers the most exquisite in the 
whole range of his creations. For others, at 
the same time it fails in the impressiveness 



AN INTERESTING POSTSCRIPT. 413 

because it lacks the reality which habitually 
marks them. 

So much, however, is certain : Mr. Brown- 
ing would never have accepted this " murder 
story " as the subject of a poem, if he could 
not in some sense have made it poeticaL It 
was only in an ideahzed Pompilia that the 
material for such a process could be found. 
We owe it, therefore, to the one departure 
from his usual mode of dramatic conception, 
that the poet's masterpiece has been produced. 
I know no other instance of what can be even 
mistaken for reflected inspiration in the whole 
range of his work, the given passages in 
" Pauline " excepted. 

The postscript of a letter to Frederic Leigh- 
ton, written so far back as October 17, 1864, 
is interesting in its connection with the pre- 
liminary stages of this great undertaking. 

" A favor, if you have time for it. Go into 
the church St. Lorenzo in Lucina in the Corso 
• — and look attentively at it — so as to de- 
scribe it to me on your return. The general 
arrangement of* the building, if with a nave 



414 ROBERT BROWNING. 

— pillars or not — the number of altars, and 
any particularity there may be — over the 
High Altar is a famous Crucifixion by Guido. 
It will be of great use to me. I don't care 
about the outside J^ 



CHAPTER XVI. 

1869-1873. 

Lord Dufferin ; " Helen's Tower." — Scotland ; Visit to Lady 
Ashburton. — Letters to Miss Blagden. — St.-Aubin ; The 
Franco-Prussian War. — " Hervd Kiel." — Letter to Mr. 
G. M. Smith. — " Balaustion's Adventure ; " *' Prince 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau." — " Fifine at the Fair." — Mis- 
taken Theories of Mr. Browning's Work. — St.-Aubin ; 
" Red Cotton Nightcap Country." 

From 1869 to 1871 Mr. Browning pub- 
lished nothing ; but in April, 1870, he wrote 
the sonnet called " Helen's Tower/' a beauti- 
ful tribute to the memory of Helen, mother 
of Lord Dufferin, suggested by the memorial 
tower which her son was erecting to her on 
his estate at Clandeboye. The sonnet ap- 
peared in 1883, in the " Pall Mall Gazette," 
and was reprinted in 1886, in "Sonnets of 
the Century," edited by Mr. Sharp ; and again 
in the fifth part of the Browning Society's 



416 ROBERT BROWNING. 



iC 



Papers ; " but it is still, I think, sufficiently 
little known to justify its reproduction. 

Who hears of Helen's Tower may dream perchance 
How the Greek Beauty from the Scsean Gate 
Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate, 

Death-doom'd because of her fair countenance. 

Hearts would leap otherwise at thy advance, 
Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate ! 
Like hers, thy face once. made all eyes elate, 

Yet, unlike hers, was bless 'd by every glance. 

The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange ; 
A transitory shame of long ago ; 

It dies into the sand from which it sprang ; 
But thine, Love's rock-built Tower, shall fear no change. 
God's self laid stable earth's foundations so. 
When all the morning-stars together sang. 

April 26, 1870. 

Lord Dufferin is a warm admirer of Mr. 
Browning's genius. He also held him in 
strong personal regard. 

In the summer of 1869 the poet, wdth his 
sister and son, changed the manner of his 
holiday, by joining Mr. Story and his family 
in a tour in Scotland, and a visit to Louisa, 
Lady Ashburton, at Loch Luichart Lodge ; 



A DREAM OF FLORENCE. 417 

but in the August of 1870 he was again in 
the primitive atmosphere of a French fishing 
village, though one which had little to recom- 
mend it but the society of a friend ; it was 
M. Milsand's St.-Aubin. He had written, 
February 24, to Miss Blagden, under the one 
inspiration which naturally recurred in his 
correspondence with her. 

... "So you, too, think of Naples for 
an eventual resting-place ! Yes, that is the 
proper basking-ground for * bright and aged 
snakes.' Florence would be irritatinPT, and, 
on the whole, insufferable — yet I never hear 
of any one going thither but my heart is 
twitched. There is a good, charming little 
singing German lady. Miss Regan, who told 
me the other day that she was just about re- 
visiting her aunt, Madame Sabatier, whom you 
may know, or know of — and I felt as if I 
should immensely like to glide, for a long 
summer day, through the streets and between 
the old stone-walls — unseen come and un- 
heard go — perhaps by some miracle, I shall 
do so — and look up at Villa Brichieri as 



418 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Arnold's Gypsy-Scholar gave one wistful look 
at ' the line of festal ligr-ht in Christ Church 
Hall/ before he went to sleep in some forgot- 
ten grange. ... I am so glad I can be com- 
fortable in your comfort. I fancy exactly how 
you feel and see how you live : it is the Villa 
Geddes of old days, I find. I well remember 
the fine view from the upper room — that 
looking down the steep hill, by the side of 
which runs the road you describe — that path 
was always my preferred walk, for its short- 
ness (abruptness) and the fine old wall to your 
left (from the Villa) which is overgrown with 
weeds and wild flowers — violets and ground- 
ivy, I remember. Oh, me ! to find myself 
some late sunshiny Sunday afternoon, with 
my face turned to Florence — ' ten minutes to 
the gate, ten minutes home ! ' I think I should 
fairly end it all on the spot." . . . 

He writes again from St.-Aubin, August 
19, 1870 : — 

Dearest Isa, — Your letter came pros- 
perously to this little wild place, where we 



LETTER TO MISS BLAGDEN. 419 

have been, Sarianna and myself, just a week. 
Milsand lives in a cottao^e with a nice bit of 
garden, two steps off, and we occupy another 
of the most primitive kind on the seashore — 
which shore is a good sandy stretch for miles 
and miles on either side. I don't think we 
were ever quite so thoroughly washed by the 
sea air from all quarters as here — the weather 
is fine, and we do well enough. The sadness 
of the war and its consequences go far to par- 
alyze all our pleasure, however. . . . 

Well, you are at Siena — one of the places 
I love best to remember. You are returned 
— or I would ask you to tell me how the Villa 
Alberti wears, and if the fig-tree behind the 
house is green and strong yet. I have a pen- 
and-ink drawing of it, dated and signed the 
last day Ba was ever there — " my fig-tree " — 
she used to sit under it, reading and writing. 
Nine years, or ten rather, since then 1 Poor 
old Landor's oak, too, and his cottage, ought 
not to be forgotten. Exactly opposite this 
house — just over the vray of the water — 
shines every night the lighthouse of Havre — - 



420 ROBERT BROWNING. 

a place I know well, and love very moderately : 
but it always gives me a thrill as I see afar, 
exactly a particular spot which I was at along 
w4th her. At this moment, I see the white 
streak of the phare in the sun, from the 
window where I write and I think. . . . Mil- 
sand went to Paris last week, just before we 
arrived, to transport his valuables to a safer 
place than his house, which is near the forti- 
fications. He is filled with as much despon- 
dency as can be — while the old dear and 
perfect kindness remains. I never knew or 
shall know his like among men. . . . 

The war did more than sadden Mr. and 
Miss Browning's visit to St.-Aubin ; it opposed 
unlooked-for difficulties to their return home. 
They had remained, unconscious of the im- 
pending danger, till Sedan had been taken, 
the Emperor's downfall proclaimed, and the 
country suddenly placed in a stage of siege. 
One morning M. Milsand came to them in 
anxious haste, and insisted on their starting 
that very day. An order, he said, had been 



RETURN FROM ST.-AUBIN. 421 

issued that no native should leave the country, 
and it only needed some unusually thick-headed 
Maire for Mr. Browning to be arrested as a 
runaway Frenchman or a Prussian spy. The 
usual passenger-boats from Calais and Boulogne 
no longer ran ; but there was, he believed, a 
chance of their finding one at Havre. They 
acted on this warning, and discovered its wis- 
dom in the various hindrances which they 
found on their way. Everywhere the horses 
had been requisitioned for the war. The boat 
on which they had relied to take them down 
the river to Caen had been stopped that very 
morning ; and when they reached the railroad 
they were told that the Prussians would be at 
the other end before night. At last they ar- 
rived at Honfleur, where they found an Eng- 
lish vessel which was about to convey cattle to 
Southampton ; and in this, setting out at mid- 
night, they made their passage to England. 

Some words addressed to Miss Blagden, 
written, I believe, in 1871, once more strike 
a touchino^ familiar note. 

. . . "But no, dearest Isa. The simple 



422 ROBERT BROWNING. 

truth is that she was the poet, and I the clever 
person by comparison — remember her Hmited 
experience of all kinds, and what she made of 
it. Kemember, on the other hand, how my 
uninterrupted health and strength and prac= 
tice with the world have helped me." . . . 

'^ Balaustion's Adventure " and " Prince 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau " were published, re- 
spectively, in August and December, 1871. 
They had been preceded in the March of the 
same year by a ballad, " Herve Riel," after- 
wards reprinted in the " Pacchiarotto " vol- 
ume, and which Mr. Browning now sold to 
the " Cornhill Masfazine " for the benefit of 
the French sufferers by the war. 

The circumstances of this little transaction, 
unique in Mr. Browning's experience, are set 
forth in the following letter : — 

February 4, 1871. 

My dear Smith, — I want to give some- 
thing to the people in Paris, and can afford 
so very little just now that I am forced upon 
an expedient. Will you buy of me that poem 
which poor Simeon praised in a letter you 



LETTER TO MR. G. M. SMITH. 423 

saw, and which I Hke better than most things 
I have done of late ? Buy — I mean — the 
right of printing it in the " Pall Mall " and, ii 
you please, the "Cornhill" also — the copy- 
right remaining with me. You remember you 
wanted to print it in the " Cornhill," and I 
was obstinate : there is hardly any occasion on 
which I should be otherwise, if the printing any 
poem of mine in a magazine were purely for 
my own sake : so, any liberality you exercise 
will not be drawn into a precedent against 
you. I fancy this is a case in which one may 
handsomely puff one's own ware, and I ven- 
ture to call my verses good for once. I send 
them to you directly, because expedition will 
render whatever I contribute more valuable : 
for when you make up your mind as to how 
liberally I shall be enabled to give, you must 
send me a cheque and I will send the same as 
the " Product of a Poem " — so that your 
light will shine deservedly. Now, begin pro- 
ceedings by reading the poem to Mrs. Smith 
— by whose judgment I will cheerfully be 
bound ; and, with her approval, second my 



424 ROBERT BROWNING. 

endeavor as best you can. Would — for the 
love of France — that this were a " Sono^ of 
a Wren" — then should the guineas equal 
the lines ; as it is, do what you safely may for 
the sons: of a Robin — Brownino^ — who is 
yours very truly, into the bargain. 

P. S. The copy is so clear and careful 
that you might, with a good Reader, print it 
on Monday, nor need my help for corrections : 
I shall however be always at home, and ready 
at a moment's notice : return the copy, if 
you please, as I promised it to my son long ago. 

Mr. Smith gave him 100 guineas as the 
price of the poem. 

He wrote concerning the two longer poems, 
first probably at the close of this year, and 
again in January, 1872, to Miss Blagden. 

..." By this time you have got my little 
book (Hohenstiel), and seen for yourself 
whether I make the best or the worst of the 
ease. I think, in the main, he meant to do 
what I say, and, but for weakness — grown 
more apparent in his last years than formerh 



"PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAUr 425 

— would have done what I say he did not.^ I 
thought badly of him at the beginning of his 
career, et ijour cause : better afterward, on 
the strength of the promises he made, and 
gave indications of intending to redeem. I 
think him very weak in the last miserable 
year. At his worst I prefer him to Thiers's 
best. I am told my little thing is succeeding 

— sold 1,400 in the first five days, and before 
any notice appeared. I remember that the 
year I made the little rough sketch in Rome, 
1860, my account for the last six months with 
Chapman was — nil, not one copy disposed 
of. . . . 

..." I am glad you like what the editor 
of the ^ Edinburgh ' calls my eulogium on the 
second empire — which it is not, any more 
than what another wiseacre affirms it to be, 'a, 
scandalous attack on the old constant friend 
of England ' — it is just what I imagine the 
man might, if he pleased, say for himself." 

Mr. Browning continues : — 

" Spite of my ailments and bewailments, 

^ This phrase is a little misleading. 



426 ROBERT BROWNING. 

I have just all but finished another poem of 
quite another kind, which shall amuse you in 
the spring, I hope ! I don't go sound asleep, 
at all events. ' Balaustion ' — the second 
edition is in the press, I think I told you. 
2,500 in five months is a good sale for the 
likes of me. But I met Henry Taylor (of 
Artevelde) two days ago at dinner, and he said 
he had never gained anything by his books, 
which surely is a shame — I mean, if no buy- 
ers mean no readers." . . . 

" Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau " was writ- 
ten in Scotland, wdiere Mr. Browning was the 
guest of Mr. Ernest Benzon : having left his 
sister to the care of M. and Madame Milsand 
at St.-Aubin. The ailment he speaks of con- 
sisted, I believe, of a severe cold. Another of 
the occurrences of 1871 was Mr. Browning's 
election as Life Governor of University Col- 
lege. 

A passage from a letter dated March 30, 
1872, bears striking testimony to the constant 
warmth of his affections. 

..." The misfortune^ which I did not 



DEATH OF MISS BLAG DEN. 427 

guess when I accepted the invitation, is that I 
shall lose some of the last days of Milsand, 
who has been here for the last month : no 
words can express the love I have for Iiim^ 
you know. He is increasingly precious to me. 
. . . Waring came back the other day, after 
thirty years' absence, the same as ever — 
nearly. He has been Prime Minister at New 
Zealand for a year and a half, but gets tired, 
and returns home with a poem." ^ 

This is my last extract from the correspond- 
ence with Miss Blagden. Her death closed it 
altogether within the year. 

It is difficult to infer from letters, however 
intimate, the dominant state of the writer's 
mind : most of all to do so in Mr. Brownino-'s 
case, from such passages of his correspondence 
as circumstances allow me to quote. Letters 
written in intimacy, and to the same friend, 
often express a recurrent mood, a revived set 
of associations, which for the moment destroys 
the habitual balance of feeling. The same 
efPect is sometimes produced in personal inter» 

^ Ranolf and AmoJiia. 



428 ROBERT BROWNING. 

course ; and the more varied the life, the more 
versatile the nature, the more readily in either 
case will a lately unused spring of emotion 
well up at the passing touch. We may even 
fancy we read into the letters of 1870 that 
eerie, haunting sadness of a cherished memory 
from which, in spite of ourselves, life is bear- 
ing us away. We may also err in so doing. 
But literary creation, patiently carried on 
through a given period, is usually a fair reflec- 
tion of the general moral and mental condi- 
tions under which it has taken place ; and it 
would be hard to imao^ine from Mr. Brown- 
ing's work during these last ten years that any 
but gracious influences had been operating 
upon his genius, any more disturbing element 
than the sense of privation and loss had 
entered into his inner life. 

Some leaven of bitterness must, neverthe- 
less, have been working within him, or he 
could never have produced that piece of per- 
plexing cynicism, " Fifine at the Fair " — the 
poem referred to as in progress in a letter to 
Miss Blagden, and which appeared in the 



"FIFINE AT THE FAIR:' 429 

spring of 1872. The disturbing cause had 
been also of long standing ; for the deeper 
reactive processes of Mr. Browning's nature 
were as slow as its more superficial response 
was swift ; and while " Dramatis Personse," 
" The Ring and the Book," and even " Balaus- 
tion's Adventure " represented the gradually 
perfected substance of his poetic imagination, 
" Fifine at the Fair " was as the froth thrown 
up by it during the prolonged simmering 
which was to leave it clear. The work dis- 
plays the iridescent brightness as well as the 
occasional impurity of this frothlike charac- 
ter. Beauty and ugliness are, indeed, almost 
inseparable in the moral impression which it 
leaves upon us. The author has put forth a 
plea for self-indulgence with a much slighter 
attempt at dramatic disguise than his special 
pleadings generally assume ; and while allow- 
ing circumstances to expose the sophistry of 
the position, and punish its attendant act, he 
does not sufficiently condemn it. But, in 
identifying himself for the moment with the 
conception of a Don Juan^ he has infused into 



430 ROBERT BROWNING. 

it a tenderness and a poetry with which the 
true type had very little in common, and 
which retard its dramatic development. Those 
who knew Mr. Browning, or who thoroughly 
know his work, may censure, regret, fail to 
understand, " Fifine at the Fair ; " they will 
never in any important sense misconstrue it. 

But it has been so misconstrued by an intel- 
ligent and not unsympathetic critic ; and his 
construction may be indorsed by other per- 
sons in the present, and still more in the 
future, in whom the elements of a truer judg- 
ment are wanting. It seems, therefore, best 
to protest at once against the mis judgment, 
though in so doing I am claiming for it an 
attention wdiich it may not seem to deserve. 
I allude to Mr. Mortimer's " Note on Brown- 
ing " in the " Scottish Art Review " for De- 
cember, 1889. This note contains a summary 
of Mr. Browning's teaching, which it resolves 
into the moral equivalent of the doctrine of 
the conservation of force. Mr. Mortimer as= 
sumes for the purpose of his comparison that 
the exercise of force means necessarily moving 



MR. MORTIMEirS GENERALIZATION. 431 

on ; and according to him Mr. Browning pre- 
scribes action at any price, even that of defy- 
ino" the restrictions of moral law. He thus, 
we are told, blames the lovers in " The Statue 
and the Bust " for their failure to carry out 
what was an immoral intention ; and, in the 
person of his " Don Juan," defends a husband's 
claim to relieve the fixity of conjugal affec- 
tion by varied adventure in the world of tem- 
porary loves : the result being " the negation 
of that convention under which we habitually 
view life, but which for some reason or other 
breaks down when we have to face the prob- 
lems of a Goethe, a Shelley, a Byron, or a 
Browning." 

Mr. Mortimer's generalization does not 
apply to the " Statue and the Bust," since 
Mr. Browning has made it perfectly clear that, 
in this case, the intended act is postponed 
without reference to its morality, and simply 
in consequence of a weakness of will, which 
would have been as paralyzing to a good pur- 
pose as it was to the bad one : but it is not 
■without superficial sanction in " Fifine at the 



432 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Fair ; " and the part which the author allowed 
himself to play in it did him an injustice only 
to be measured by the inference which it has 
been made to support. There could be no 
mistake more ludicrous, were it less regret^ 
table, than that of classing Mr. Browning, on 
moral grounds, with Byron or Shelley ; even 
in the case of Goethe the analogy breaks 
down. The evidence of the foregoing pages 
may have rendered this assertion superfluous. 
But the suggested moral resemblance to the 
two English poets receives a striking comment 
in a fact of Mr. Browning's life which falls 
practically into the present period of our his- 
tory : his withdrawal from Shelley of the de- 
votion of more than forty years on account of 
an act of heartlessness towards his first wife 
which he held to have been proved against him. 
The sweet and the bitter lay, indeed, very 
close to each other at the sources of Mr. 
Browning's inspiration. Both proceeded, in 
great measure, from his spiritual allegiance to 
the past — that past by which it was impossi- 
ble that he should linger, but which he could 



A CYNICAL MOOD OF FANCY. 433 

not yet leave behind. The present came to 
him with friendly greeting. He was uncon- 
sciously, perhaps inevitably, unjust to what it 
brought. The injustice reacted upon him- 
self, and developed by degrees into the cyni- 
cal mood of fancy which became manifest in 
" Fifine at the Fair." 

It is true that, in the light of this expla- 
nation, we see an effect very unlike its cause ; 
but the chemistry of human emotion is like 
that of natural life. It will often form a com- 
pound in which neither of its constituents can 
be recognized. This perverse poem was the 
last as well as the first manifestation of an 
ungenial mood of Mr. Browning's mind. A 
slight exception may be made for some pas- 
sages in " Ked Cotton Nightcap Country," 
and for one of the poems of the " Pacchia= 
rotto " volume : but otherwise no siofn of 
moral or mental disturbance betrays itself in 
his subsequent work. The past and the pres- 
ent gradually assumed for him a more just 
relation to each other. He learned to meet 
life as it offered itself to him with a more 



434 ROBERT BROWNING. 

:^\^ank recognition of its good gifts, a more 
grateful response to them. He grew happier, 
hence more genial, as the years advanced. 

It was not without misgiving that Mio 
Browning published " Fifine at the Fair ; " 
but many years were to pass before he reahzed 
the kind of criticism to which it had exposed 
him. The belief conveyed in the letter to 
Miss Blagden that what proceeds from a gen- 
uine inspiration is justiiied by it, combined 
with the indifference to public opinion which 
had been engendered in him by its long neg- 
lect, made him slow to anticipate the results 
of external judgment, even where he was in 
&ome degree prepared to indorse them. For 
his value as a poet, it was best so. 

The August of 1872 and of 1873 again 
found him with his sister at St.-Aubin, and 
the earlier visit was an important one : since 
it supplied him with the materials of his next 
work, of which Miss Annie Thackeray, there 
also for a few days, suggested the title. The 
tragic drama which forms the subject of Mr. 
Browning's poem had been in great part 



''RED COTTON NIGHTCAP COUNTRY:' 435 

enacted in the vicinity of St.-Aubin ; and the 
case of disputed inheritance to which it had 
given rise was pending at that moment in the 
tribunals of Caen. The prevaiHng impression 
left on Miss Thackeray's mind by this primi- 
tive district was, she declared, that of white 
cotton nightcaps (the habitual headgear of 
the Normandy peasants). She engaged to 
write a story called " White Cotton Ni2"htcap 
Country ; " and Mr. Browning's quick sense 
of both contrast and analogy inspired the 
introduction of this emblem of re^ 'se into his 
own picture of that peaceful, prosaic existence, 
and of the ghastly spiritual conflict to which 
it had served as background. He employed 
a good deal of perhaps strained ingenuity in 
the opening pages of the work, in making 
the Avhite cap foreshadow the red, itself the 
symbol of liberty, and only indirectly con- 
nected with tragic events; and he would, I 
think, have emphasized the irony of circum- 
stance in a manner more characteristic of him- 
self, if he had laid his stress on the remoteness 
from "the madding crowd," and repeated 



436 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Miss Thackeray's title. There can, however, 
be no doubt that his poetic imagination, no 
less than his human insight, was amply vin- 
dicated by his treatment of the story. 

On leaving St.-Aubin he spent a month at 
Fontainebleau, in a house situated on the out- 
skirts of the forest ; and here his principal 
indoor occupation was reading the Greek 
dramatists, especially ^schylus, to whom he 
had returned with revived interest and curios- 
ity. " Red Cotton Nightcap Country " was 
not beorun till his return to London in the 
later autumn. It was published in the early 
summer of 1873. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

1873-1878. 

London Life. — Love of Music. — Miss Egerton-Smith. — 
Periodical Nervous Exhaustion. — Mers ; " Aristophanes' 
Apology." — " Agamemnon." — " The Inn Album." — 
" Pacchiarotto and other Poems." — Visits to Oxford and 
Cambridge. — Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. — St. An- 
drews ; Letter from Professor Knight. — In the Savoyard 
Mountains. — Death of Miss Egerton-Smith. — " La Sai- 
siaz ; " " The Two Poets of Croisic." — Selections from his 
Works. 

The period on which we have now entered, 
covering roughly the ten or twelve years which 
followed the publication of " The Ring and 
the Book," was the fullest in Mr. Browning's 
life ; it was that in which the varied claims 
made by it on his moral, and above all his 
physical energies, found in him the fullest 
power of response. He could rise early and 
go to bed late — this, however, never from 
choice ; and occupy every hour of the day 



438 ROBERT BROWNING. 

with work or pleasure, in a manner which his 
friends recalled regretfully in later years, when 
of two or three engagements which ought to 
have divided his afternoon, a single one — 
perhaps only the most formally pressing — 
could be fulfilled. Soon after his final return 
to England, while he still lived in comparative 
seclusion, certain habits of friendly intercourse, 
often superficial, but always binding, had 
rooted themselves in his life. London society, 
as I have also implied, opened itself to him in 
ever-widening circles, or, as it would be truer 
to say, drew him more and more deeply into 
its whirl ; and even before the mellowing kind- 
ness of his nature had infused warmth into 
the least substantial of his social relations, the 
imaginative curiosity of the poet — for a while 
the natural ambition of the man — found sat- 
isfaction in it. For a short time, indeed, he 
entered into the fashionable routine of coun- 
try-house visiting. Besides the instances I 
have already given, and many others which I 
may have forgotten, he was heard of, during 
the earlier part of this decade, as the guest of 



COUNTRY-HOUSE VISITING. 439 

Lord Carnarvon at Highclere Castle, of Lord 
Shrewsbury at Alton Towers, of Lord Brown- 
low and his mother, Lady Marian Alford, at 
Belton and Ashridge. Somewhat later, he 
stayed with Mr. and Lady Alice Gaisford at a 
house they temporarily occupied on the Sussex 
downs ; with Mr. Cholmondeley at Condover^ 
and, much more recently, at Aynhoe Park 
with Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright. Kind and 
pressing, and in themselves very tempting in- 
vitations of this nature came to him until the 
end of his life ; but he very soon made a prac- 
tice of declining them, because their accept- 
ance could only renew for him the fatigues 
of the London season, while the tantalizing 
beauty and repose of the country lay before 
his eyes; but such visits, while they contin- 
ued, were one of the necessary social experi- 
ences which brought their grist to his mill. 

And now, in addition to the large social 
tribute which he received, and had to pay, he 
was drinking in all the enjoyment, and incur- 
ringf all the fatig^ue which the London musical 
world could create for him. In Italy he had 



440 ROBERT BROWNING. 

found the natural home of the other arts. 
The one poem, " Old Pictures in Florence/' is 
sufficiently eloquent of long communion with 
the old masters and their works ; and if his 
history in Florence and Rome had been writ- 
ten in his own letters instead of those of his 
wife, they must have held many reminiscences 
of galleries and studios, and of the places in 
which pictures are bought and sold. But his 
love for music was as certainly starved as the 
delight in painting and sculpture was nour- 
ished ; and it had now grown into a passion, 
from the indulgence of which he derived, 
as he always declared, some of the most be- 
neficent influences of his life. It would be 
scarcely an exaggeration to say that he at- 
tended every important concert of the season, 
whether isolated or given in a course. There 
was no engagement possible or actual, which 
did not yield to the discovery of its clashing 
with the day and hour fixed for one of these. 
His frequent companion on such occasions 
was Miss Egerton-Smith. 

Miss Smith became onlv known to Mr. 



MISS EGERTON-SMITH. 441 

Browning's general acquaintance through the 
dedicatory " A. E. S." o£ " La Saisiaz ; " but 
she was, at the time of her death, one of his 
oldest women friends. He first met her as a 
young woman in Florence when she was visit- 
ing there ; and the love for and proficiency in 
music soon asserted itself as a bond of sympa- 
thy between them. They did not, however, see 
much of each other till he had finally left Italy, 
and she also had made her home in London. 
She there led a secluded life, although free 
from family ties, and enjoying a large income 
derived from the ownership of an important 
provincial paper. Mr. Browning was one of 
the very few persons whose society she cared 
to cultivate ; and for many years the common 
musical interest took the practical, and for 
both of them convenient form, of their going 
to concerts together. After her death, in the 
autumn of 1877, he almost mechanically re- 
nounced all the musical entertainments to 
which she had so regularly accompanied him. 
The special motive and special facility were 
gone — she had been wont to call for him in 



442 ROBERT BROWNING. 

her carriage ; the habit was broken ; there 
would have been first pain, and afterwards an 
unwelcome exertion in renewing it. Time 
was also beginning to sap his strength, while 
society, and perhaps friendship, were making 
increasing claims upon it. It may have been 
for this same reason that music after a time 
seemed to pass out of his life altogether. Yet 
its almost sudden eclipse was striking in the 
case of one who not only had been so deeply 
susceptible to its emotional influences, so con- 
versant with its scientific construction and its 
multitudinous forms, but who was acknow- 
ledged as " musical " by those who best know 
the subtle and complex meaning of that often 
misused term. 

Mr. Browning could do all that I have said 
during the period through which we are now 
following him ; but he could not quite do it 
with impunity. Each winter brought its 
searching attack of cold and cough ; each 
summer reduced him to the state of nervous 
prostration or physical apathy of which I have 
already spoken, and which at once rendered 



SUMMER DIFFICULTIES. 443 

change imperative, and the exertion of seek- 
ing it almost intolerable. His health and 
spirits rebounded at the first draught of for- 
eign air; the first breath from an English 
cliff or moor might have had the same result. 
But the remembrance of this fact never 
nerved him to the preliminary effort. The 
conviction renewed itself with the close of 
every season, that the best thing which could 
happen to him would be to be left quiet at 
home ; and his disinclination to face even the 
idea of moving equally hampered his sister in 
her endeavor to make timely arrangements 
for their change of abode. 

This special craving for rest helped to limit 
the area from which their summer resort could 
be chosen. It precluded all idea of a pension- 
life, hence of any much-frequented spot in 
Switzerland or Germany. It was tacitly un* 
derstood that the shortening days were not to 
be passed in England. Italy did not yet asso- 
ciate itself with the possibilities of a moder- 
ately short absence ; the resources of the 
northern French coast were becoming ex- 



444 ROBERT BROWNING. 

hausted ; and as the August of 1874 ap- 
proached, the question of how and where this 
and the following months were to be spent 
was, perhaps, more than ever a perplexing one. 
It was now Miss Smith who became the means 
of its solution. She had more than once 
joined Mr. and Miss Browning at the seaside. 
She was anxious this year to do so again, and 
she suggested for their meeting a quiet spot 
called Mers, almost adjoining the fashionable 
Treport, but distinct from it. It was agreed 
that they should try it ; and the experiment, 
which they had no reason to regret, opened 
also in some degree a way out of future diffi- 
culties. Mers was young, and had the defect 
of its quality. Only one desirable house was 
to be found there ; and the plan of joint resi- 
dence became converted into one of joint 
housekeeping, in which Mr. and Miss Brown- 
ing at first refused to concur, but which 
worked so well that it was renewed in the 
three ensuing summers : Miss Smith retaining 
the initiative in the choice of place, her friends 
the right of veto upon it. They stayed again 



<' ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY:' 445 

together in 1875 at Villers, on the coast of 
Normandy ; in 1876 at the Isle of Arran ; in 
1877 at a house called La Saisiaz — Savoyard 
for the sun — in the Saleve district near 
Geneva. 

The autumn months of 1874 were marked 
for Mr. Browning- by an important piece of 
work : the production of " Aristophanes' Apol- 
ogy." It was far advanced when he returned 
to London in November, after a visit to Ant- 
werp, where his son was studying art under 
M. Hey er mans ; and its much later appear- 
ance must have been intended to give breath- 
ing time to the readers of " Red Cotton Night- 
cap Country." Mr. Browning subsequently 
admitted that he sometimes, during these 
years, allowed active literary occupation to 
interfere too much with the good which his 
holiday might have done him ; but the temp- 
tations to literary activity were this time too 
great to be withstood. The house occupied 
by him at Mers (Maison Robert) was the last 
of the straggling village, and stood on a ris- 
ing cliff. In front was the open sea ; beyond 



4-16 ROBERT BROWNING. 

it a long stretch o£ down ; everywhere com- 
parative solitude. Here, in uninterrupted 
quiet, and in a room devoted to his use, Mr. 
Browning would work till the afternoon was 
advanced, and then set forth on a long walk 
over the cliffs, often in the face of a wdnd 
which, as he wrote of it at the time, he could 
lean against as if it were a wall. And during 
this time he was living, not only in his work, 
but with the man who had inspired it. The 
image of Aristophanes, in the half -shamed 
insolence, the disordered majesty, in which he 
is placed before the reader's mind, was present 
to him from the first moment in which the 
Defense was conceived. What was still more 
interesting, he could see him, hear him, think 
with him, speak for him, and still inevitably 
condemn him. No such instance of always 
ingenious, and sometimes earnest pleading 
foredoomed to complete discomfiture occurs 
in Mr. Browning's works. 

To Aristophanes he gave the dramatic sym- 
pathy which one lover of life can extend to 
another, though that other unduly extol its 



TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK. 447 

lower forms. To Euripides he brought the 
palm of the higher truth, to his work the trib- 
ute of the more pathetic human emotion. 
Even these for a moment ministered to the 
greatness of Aristophanes, in the tear shed by 
him to the memory of his rival, in the hour 
of his own triumph ; and we may be quite 
sure that when Mr. Browning depicted that 
scene, and again when he translated the great 
tragedian's words, his own eyes were dimmed. 
Large tears fell from them, and emotion 
choked his voice, when he first read aloud the 
transcript of the " Herakles " to a friend, who 
was often privileged to hear him. 

Mr. Browning's deep feeling for the hu- 
manities of Greek literature, and his almost 
passionate love for the language, contrasted 
strongly with his refusal to regard even the 
first of Greek writers as models of literary 
style. The pretensions raised for them on 
this ground were inconceivable to him ; and 
his translation of the " Agamemnon," pub- 
lished 1877, was partly made, I am convinced, 
for the pleasure of exposing these claims, and 



448 ROBERT BROWNING. 

of rebuking them. His preface to the tran- 
script gives evidence of this. The glee with 
which he pointed to it when it first appeared 
was no less significant. 

At Villers, in 1875, he only corrected the 
proofs of " The Inn Album " for publication 
in November. When the party started for 
the Isle of Arran, in the autumn of 1876, 
the " Pacchiarotto " volume had already ap- 
peared. 

When Mr. Browning discontinued his short- 
lived habit of visiting away from home, he 
made an exception in favor of the Univer- 
sities. His occasional visits to Oxford and 
Cambridge were maintained till the very end 
of his life, with increasing frequency in the 
former case ; and the days spent at Balliol 
and Trinity afforded him as unmixed a plea- 
sure as was compatible with the interruption 
of his daily habits, and with a system of hospi- 
tality which would detain him for many hours 
at table. A vivid picture of them is given in 
two letters, dated January 20 and March 10, 
1877, and addressed to one of his constant 



LETTER TO MRS. FITZ^GERALD. 449 

correspondents, Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, of Shalstone 
Manor, Buckingham. 

Dear Friend, — I have your letter of yes- 
terday, and thank you all I can for its good- 
ness and graciousness to me unworthy. . . . 
I return on Thursday — the hospitality of our 
Master being not easy to set aside. But to 
begin with the beginning : the passage from 
London to Oxford was exceptionally prosper- 
ous — the train was full of men my friends. 
I was welcomed on arriving by a Fellow who 
installed me in my rooms — then came the 
pleasant meeting with Jowett, who at once 
took me to tea with his other guests, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London, 
Dean of Westminster, the Airlies, Cardwells, 
male and female. Then came the banquet (I 
inclose you the plan, having no doubt that 
you will recognize the name of many an ac- 
quaintance : please return it) — and, the din- 
ner done, speechifying set in vigorously. The 
Archbishop proposed the standing Floreat 
domiis de Balliolo — to which the Master 



450 ROBERT BROV/NING. 

made due and amusing answer, himself giving 
the health of the Primate. Lord Coleridge, 
in a silvery speech, drank to the University, 
responded to by the Vice-Chaneellor. I for- 
get who proposed the visitors — the Bishop of 
London, perhaps Lord Car dwell. Professor 
Smith gave the two Houses of Parliament, — 
Jowett, the Clergy, coupling with it the name 
of your friend Mr. Rogers — on whom he 
showered every kind of praise, and Mr. Rogers 
returned thanks very characteristically and 
pleasantly. Lord Lansdowne drank to the 
Bar (Mr. Bowen), Lord Camperdown to — I 
really forget what : Mr. Green to Literature 
and Science, delivering a most undeserved eulo- 
gium on myself, with a more rightly directed 
one on Arnold, Swinburne, and the old pride 
of Balliol, Clough : this was cleverly and al- 
most touchingly answered by dear Mat Ar- 
nold. Then the Dean of Westminster gave 
the Fellows and Scholars — and then — twelve 
o'clock struck. We were, counting from the 
time of preliminary assemblage, six hours and 
a half engaged : fully five and a half nailed to 



VISIT TO OXFORD. 451 

our chairs at the table : but the whole thing 
was briUiant, genial, and suggestive o£ many 
and various thoughts to me — and there was 
a warmth, earnestness, and yet refinement 
about it which I never experienced in any 
previous public dinner. Next morning I 
breakfasted with Jowett and his guests, found 
that return would be difficult : while as the 
young men were to return on Friday there 
would be no opposition to my departure on 
Thursday. The morning was dismal with 
rain, but after luncheon there was a chance of 
getting a little air, and I walked for more 
than two hours, then heard service in New 
Coll. — then dinner again : my room had 
been prepared in the Master's house. So, on 
Thursday, after yet another breakfast^ I left 
by the noonday train, after all sorts of kindly 
offices from the Master. . . . No reporters 
were suffered to be present — the account in 
yesterday's " Times " was furnished by one or 
more of the guests ; it is quite correct as far 
as it goes. There were, I find, certain little 
paragraphs which must have been furnished 



452 ROBERT BROWNING. 

by " guessers : " Swinburne, set down as pres- 
ent, was absent through his father's iUness : 
the Cardinal also excused himself as did the 
Bishop of Salisbury and others. . . . 

Ever yours, 

R. Browning. 

The second letter, from Cambridge, was 
short and written in haste, at the moment of 
Mr. Browning's departure ; but it tells the 
same tale of general kindness and attention. 
Engagements for no less than six meals had 
absorbed the first day of the visit. The oc- 
casion was that of Professor Joachim's in- 
vestiture with his Doctor's degree ; and Mr. 
Browning declares that this ceremony, the 
concert given by the great violinist, and his 
society, were " each and all " worth the trouble 
of the journey. He himself was to receive 
the Cambridge degree of LL. D. in 1879, the 
Oxford D. C. L. in 1882. A passage in an- 
other letter addressed to the same friend 
refers probably to a practical reminiscence of 
"Red Cotton Nightcap Country," which en- 



LETTER FROM CAMBRIDGE. 453 

livened the latter experience, and which Mrs. 
Fitz-Gerald had witnessed with disapproba- 
tion.^ 

. . . You are far too hard on the very 
harmless drolleries of the young men, licensed 
as they are, moreover, by immemorial usage. 
Indeed there used to be a regularly appointed 
jester, Filius Terrce he was called, whose 
business it was to jibe and jeer at the honored 
ones, by way of reminder that all human 
glories are merely gilded bubbles and musi 
not be fancied metal. You saw that the Rev- 
erend Dons escaped no more than the pooi 
poet — or rather I should say than myselV* 
the poor poet — for I was pleased to observe 
with what attention they listened to the New- 
digate. . . . 

Ever affectionately yours, 

R. Browning. 

In 1875 he was unanimously nominated by 

^ An actual red cotton nightcap had been made to flutter 
down on to the poet's head. 



454 ROBERT BROWNING. 

its Independent Club to the office of Lord 
Rector of the University of Glasgow ; and in 
1877 he again received the offer of the Rec- 
torship of St. Andrews, couched in very ur- 
gent and flattering terms. A letter addressed 
to him from this University by Dr. William 
Knight, Professor of Moral Philosophy there, 
which I have his permission to publish, bears 
witness to what had long been and was always 
to remain a prominent fact of Mr. Browning's 
literary career : his great influence on the 
minds of the rising generation of his country- 
men. 

T'HE University, St. Andrews, N. B., 
November 17, 1877. 

My dear Sir, — ... The students of this 
University, in which I have the honor to hold 
office, have nominated you as their Lord Rec- 
tor ; and intend unanimously, I am told, to 
elect you to that office on Thursday. 

I believe that hitherto no Rector has been 
chosen by the undivided suffrage of any 
Scottish University. They have heard, how- 
ever, that you are unable to accept the office ; 



LETTER FROM PROFESSOR KNIGHT. 455 

and your committee, who were deeply disap- 
pointed to learn this afternoon of the way in 
v/hieh you have been informed of their inten- 
tions, are, I believe, writing to you on the 
subject. So keen is their regret that they 
intend respectfully to wait upon you on Tues- 
day morning by deputation, and ask if you 
cannot waive your difficulties in deference to 
their enthusiasm, and allow them to proceed 
with your election. 

Their suffrage may, I think, be regarded as 
one sign of how the thoughtful youth of 
Scotland estimate the work you have done in 
the world of letters. 

And permit me to say that while these 
Rectorial elections in the other Universities 
have frequently turned on local questions, or 
been inspired by political partisanship, St. 
Andrews has honorably sought to choose men 
distinguished for literary eminence, and to 
make the Rectorship a tribute at once of intel= 
lectual and moral esteem. 

May I add that when the ^9er/ervic?2«?7i in- 
geniuni of our northern race takes the form 



456 ROBERT BROWNING. 

not of youthful hero-worship, but of loyal 
admiration and respectful homage, it is a very 
genuine affair. In the present instance I 
may say it is no mere outburst of young un- 
disciplined enthusiasm, but an honest expres- 
sion of intellectual and moral indebtedness, 
the genuine and distinct tribute of many 
minds that have been touched to some higher 
issues by what you have taught them. They 
do not presume to speak of your place in 
English literature. They merely tell you by 
this proffered honor (the highest in their 
power to bestow), how they have felt your 
influence over* them. 

My own obligations to you, and to the 
author of " Aurora Leigh," are such that of 
them " silence is golden." 

Yours ever gratefully, 

William Knight. 

Mr. Browning .was deeply touched and 
gratified by these professions of esteem. He 
persisted, nevertheless, in his refusal. The 
Glasgow nomination had also been declined 
bv him. 



UNDER THE SAL^VE. 457 

On August 17, 1877, he wrote to Mrs. 
Fitz-Gerald from La Saisiaz : — 

" How lovely is this place in its solitude 
and seclusion, with its trees and shrubs and 
flowers, and above all its live mountain stream 
which supplies three fountains, and two de- 
lightful baths, a marvel of delicate delight 
framed in with trees — I bathe there twice a 
day — and then what wonderful views from 
the chalet on every side ! Geneva lying un- 
der us, with the lake and the whole plain 
bounded by the Jura and our own Saleve, 
which latter seems rather close behind our 
house, and yet takes a hard hour and a half 
to ascend — all this you can imagine since 
you know the environs of the town ; the peace 
and quiet move me the most. And I fancy 
I shall drowse out the two months or more, 
doing no more of serious work than reading 
— and that is virtuous renunciation of the 
glorious view to my right here — as I sit 
aerially like Euripides, and see the clouds come 
and go, and the view change in correspon- 
dence with them. It will help me to get rid 



458 ROBERT BROWNING. 

of the pain which attaches itself to the recol- 
lections of Lucerne and Berne 'in the old 
days when the Greeks suffered so much/ as 
Homer says. But a very real and sharp pain 
touched me here when I heard of the death 
of poor Virginia March, whom I knew partic- 
ularly, and parted with hardly a fortnight ago, 
leaving her affectionate and happy as ever. 
The tones of her voice as on one memorable 
occasion she ejaculated repeatedly Good 
friend ! are fresh still. Poor Virginia ! " . . . 
Mr. Browning was more than quiescent 
during this stay in the Savoyard mountains. 
He was unusually depressed, and unusually 
disposed to regard the absence from home as 
a banishment ; and he tried subsequently to 
account for this condition by the shadow 
which coming trouble sometimes casts before 
it. It was more probably due to the want 
of the sea air which he had enjoyed for so 
many years, and to that special oppressive 
heat of the Swiss valleys which ascends with 
them to almost their hiofhest level. When 
he said that the Saleve seemed close behind 



WHAT HE 1.0 VED IN NATURE. 459 

the house, he was saying in other words that 
the sun beat back from, and the air was in- 
tercepted by it. We see, nevertheless, in his 
description of the surrounding scenery, a 
promise of the contemplative delight in natu- 
ral beauty to be henceforth so conspicuous in 
his experience, and which seemed a new fea- 
ture in it. He had hitherto approached every 
living thing with curious and sympathetic 
observation — this hardly requires saying of 
one who had animals for his first and always 
familiar friends. Flowers also attracted him 
by their perfume. But what he loved in na- 
ture was essentially its prefiguring of human 
existence, or its echo of it ; and it never 
appeared, in either his works or his conversa- 
tion, that he was much impressed by its inan- 
imate forms — by even those larger phenom- 
ena of mountain and cloud-land on which the 
letter dwells. Such beauty as most appealed 
to him he had left behind with the joys and 
sorrows of his Italian life, and it had almost 
inevitably passed out of his consideration. 
During yearF of his residence in London he 



460 ROBERT BROWNING. 

never thought of the country as a source of 
pleasurable emotions, other than those contin- 
gent on renewed health ; and the places to 
which he resorted had often not much beyond 
their health-giving qualities to recommend 
them ; his appetite for the beautiful had 
probably dwindled for lack of food. But 
when a friend once said to him : " You have 
not a great love for nature, have you ? " he 
had replied : " Yes, I have, but I love men 
and women better ; " and the admission, which 
conveyed more than it literally expressed, 
would have been true, I believe, at any, up to 
the present, period of his history. Even now 
he did not cease to love men and women 
best ; but he found increasing enjoyment in 
the beauties of nature, above all as they 
opened upon him on the southern slopes- of 
the Alps ; and the delight of the aesthetic 
sense merged gradually in the satisfied craving 
for pure air and brilliant sunshine which 
marked his final struggle for physical life. 
A ring of enthusiasm comes into his letters 
from the mountains, and deepens as the years 



DEATH OF MISS EGERTON-SMITH. 461 

advance ; doubtless enhanced by the great — 
perhaps too great — exhilaration which the 
Alpine atmosphere produced, but also in large 
measure independent of it. Each new place 
into which the summer carries him he declares 
more beautiful than the last. It possibly was 
so. 

A touch of autumnal freshness had barely 
crept into the atmosphere of the Saleve, when 
a moral thunderbolt fell on the little group of 
persons domiciled at its base : Miss Egerton- 
Smith died, in what had seemed for her unus- 
ually good health, in the act of preparing for 
a mountain excursion with her friends — the 
words still almost on her lips in which she had 
given some directions for their comfort. Mr. 
Browning's impressionable nervous system was 
for a moment paralyzed by the shock. It re- 
vived in all the emotional and intellectual im- 
pulses which gave birth to " La Saisiaz." 

This poem contains, besides its personal ref- 
erence and association, elements of distinctive 
biographical interest. It is the author's first 
— as also last — attempt to reconstruct his 



462 ROBERT BROWNING. 

hope of immortality by a rational process 
based entirely on the fundamental facts of his 
own knowledge and consciousness — God and 
the human soul ; and while the very assump- 
tion of these facts, as basis for reasoning, 
places him at issue with scientific thought, 
there is in his way of handling them a tribute 
to the scientific spirit, perhaps foreshadowed 
in the beautiful epilogue to " Dramatis Per- 
sonse," but of which there is no trace in his 
earlier religious works. It is conclusive both 
in form and matter as to his heterodox atti- 
tude towards Christianity. He was no less, in 
his way, a Christian when he wrote " La Sai- 
siaz" than when he published a "Death in the 
Desert " and " Christmas Eve and Easter 
Day ; " or at any period subsequent to that in 
w^hich he accepted without questioning what 
he had learned at his mother's knee. He has 
repeatedly written or declared in the words of 
Charles Lamb : ^ " If Christ entered the room 

^ These words have more siguifieauce when taken with 
their context. " If Shakespeare was to come into the room, 
we should all rise up to meet him; but if that Person [mean- 
ing Christ] was to come into the room, we should all fall 
down and try to kiss the hem of his garment." 



THE FUTURE OF THE SOUL. 463 

T should fall on my knees ; " and again, in 
those o£ Napoleon . "\ am an understander of 
men, and He was no man." He has even 
added : " If he had been, he would have been 
an impostor." But the arguments, in great 
part negative, set forth in " La Saisiaz " for 
the immortality of the soul leave no place for 
the idea, however indefinite, of a Christian 
revelation on the subject. Christ remained 
for Mr. Browning a mystery and a message of 
Divine Love, but no messenger of Divine in- 
tention towards mankind. 

The dialogue between Fancy and Reason is 
not only an admission of uncertainty as to the 
future of the Soul : it is a plea for it ; and as 
such it gathers up into its few words of direct 
statement threads of reasoning which have 
been traceable throughout Mr. Browning's 
work. In this plea for uncertainty lies also a 
full and frank acknowledgment of the value 
of the earthly life ; and as interpreted by his 
general views, that value asserts itself, not 
only in the means of probation which life af- 
fords, but in its existing conditions of happi- 



464 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ness. No one, he declares, possessing the cer- 
tainty of a future state would patiently and 
fully live out the present ; and since the fu- 
ture can be only the ripened fruit of the pres- 
ent, its promise would be neutralized, as well 
as actual experience dwarfed, by a definite 
revelation. Nor, conversely, need the want of 
a certified future depress the present spiritual 
and moral Hfe. It is in the nature of the 
Soul that it would suffer from the promise. 
The existence of God is a justification for 
hope. And since the certainty would be inju- 
rious to the Soul, hence destructive to itself, 
the doubt — in other words, the hope — be- 
comes a sufficient approach to, a working sub- 
stitute for it. It is pathetic to see how in 
spite of the convictions thus rooted in Mr. 
Browning's mind, the expressed craving for 
more knowledge, for more light, will now and 
then escape him. 

Even orthodox Christianity gives no assur- 
ance of reunion to those whom death has sep- 
arated. It is obvious that Mr, Browning's 
poetic creed could hold no conviction regard- 



"LA SAisiAzr 465 

ing it. He hoped for such reunion in propor- 
tion as he wished. There must have been 
moments in his Hfe when the wish in its pas- 
sion overleapt the bounds of hope. "Pro- 
spice " appears to prove this. But the wide 
range of imagination, no less than the lack of 
knowledge, forbade in him any forecast of the 
possibilities of the life to come. He believed 
that if granted, it would be an advance on the 
present — an accession of knowledge if not an 
increase of happiness. He was satisfied that 
whatever it gave, and whatever it withheld, it 
would be good. In his normal condition this 
sufficed to him. 

" La Saisiaz " appeared in the early summer 
of 1878, and with it "The Two Poets of 
Croisic," which had been written immediately 
after it. The various incidents of this poem 
are strictly historical ; they lead the way to a 
characteristic utterance of Mr. Browning's phi- 
losophy of life to which I shall recur later. 

In 1872 Mr. Browning had published a 
first series of selections from his works ; it was 
to be followed by a second in 1880. In a 



466 ROBERT BROWNING. 

preface to the earlier volume, he indicates the 
plan which he has followed in the choice and 
arrangement of poems ; and some such inten- 
tion runs also through the second ; since he 
declined a suggestion made to him for the in= 
troduction or placing of a special poem, on the 
ground of its not conforming to the end he 
had in view. It is difficult, in the one case as 
in the other, to reconstruct the imagined per- 
sonality to which his preface refers ; and his 
words on the later occasion pointed rather to 
that idea of a chord of feeling which is raised 
by the correspondence of the first and last po- 
ems of the respective groups. But either clue 
may be followed with interest. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

1878-1884. 

He revisits Italy ; Asolo ; Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. — 
Venice. — Favorite Alpine Retreats. — Mrs. Arthur Bron- 
sou. — Life in Venice. — A Tragedy at Saint-Pierre. — 
Mr. Cholmondeley. — Mr. Browning's Patriotic Feeling ; 
Extract from Letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow. — " Dra- 
matic Idyls." — " Jocoseria." — " Ferishtah's Fancies." 

The catastrophe of La Saisiaz closed a 
comprehensive chapter in Mr. Browning's 
habits and experience. It impelled him 
finally to break with the associations o£ the 
last seventeen autumns, which he remembered 
more in their tedious or painful circumstances 
than in the unexciting pleasure and renewed 
physical health which he had derived from 
them. He was weary of the ever-recurring 
effort to uproot himself from his home life, 
only to become stationary in some more or 
less uninteresting northern spot. The always 



468 ROBERT BROWNING. 

latent desire for Italy sprang up in him, and 
with it the often present thought and wish to 
give his sister the opportunity of seeing it. 

Florence and Rome were not included in 
his scheme ; he knew them both too well ; 
but he hankered for Asolo and Venice. He 
determined, though as usual reluctantly, and 
not till the last moment, that they should 
move southwards in the August of 1878. 
Their route lay over the Spliigen ; and having 
heard of a comfortable hotel near the summit 
of the Pass, they agreed to remain there till 
the heat had sufficiently abated to allow of 
the descent into Lombardy. The advantages 
of this first arrangement exceeded their ex- 
pectations. It gave them solitude without 
the sense of loneliness. A little stream of 
travelers passed constantly over the mountain, 
and they could shake hands with acquaint- 
ances at night, and know them gone in the 
morning. They dined at the table d'hote, 
but took all other meals alone, and slept in a 
detached wing or dependance of the hotel. 
Their daily walks sometimes carried them 



ITALY REVISITED. 469 

down to the Via Mala ; often to the top of 
the ascent, where they could rest^ looking 
down into Italy ; and would even be pro- 
longed over a period of five hours and an 
extent of seventeen miles. Now, as always^ 
the mountain air stimulated Mr. Browning's 
physical energy ; and on this occasion it also 
especially quickened his imaginative powers. 
Pie was preparing the first series of ^^ Drama- 
tic Idyls ; " and several of these, including 
" Ivan Ivcinovitch," were produced with such 
rapidity that Miss Browning refused to coun- 
tenance a prolonged stay on the mountain, 
unless he worked at a more reasonable rate. 

They did not linger on their way to Asolo 
and Venice, except for a night's rest on the 
Lake of Como and two days at Verona^ In 
their successive journeys through Northern 
Italy they visited by degrees all its notable 
cities, and it would be easy to recall, in order 
and detail, most of these yearly expeditions. 
But the account of them would chiefly re- 
solve itself into a list of names and dates ; for 
Mr. Brovv^ning had seldom a new impression 



470 ROBERT BROWNING. 

to receive, even from localities which he had 
not seen before. I know that he and his sis- 
ter were deeply struck by the deserted gran- 
deurs of Eavenna ; and that it stirred in both 
of them a memorable sensation to wander as 
they did for a whole day through the pine- 
woods consecrated by Dante. I am neverthe- 
less not sure that when they performed the 
repeated round of picture-galleries and pal- 
aces, they were not sometimes simply paying 
their debt to opportunity, and as much for 
each other's sake as for their own. Where 
all was Italy, there was little to gain or lose 
in one memorial of greatness, one object of 
beauty, visited or left unseen. But in Asolo, 
even in Venice, Mr. Browning was seeking 
something more : the remembrance of his 
own actual and poetic youth. How far he 
found it in the former place we may infer 
from a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald. 

September 28, 1878. 

And from Asolo, at last, dear friend ! So 
can dreams come false, S., who has been 



ASOLO. 471 

writing at the opposite side of the table, has 
told you about our journey and adventures, 
such as they were : but she cannot tell you 
the f eelinofs with which I revisit this — to me 
— memorable place after above forty years^ 
absence — such things have begun and ended 
with me in the interval ! It was too strange 
when we reached the ruined tower on the hill- 
top yesterday, and I said, " Let me try if the 
echo still exists which I discovered here " (you 
can produce it from only one particular spot 
on a remainder of brickwork), and there- 
upon it answered me plainly as ever, after all 
the silence : for some children from the ad- 
joining podere, happening to be outside, heard 
my voice and its result — and began trying to 
perform the feat — caUing " Yes, yes " — all 
in vain : so, perhaps, the mighty secret will 
die with me ! We shall probably stay here a 
day or two longer — the air is so pure, the 
country so attractive : but we must go soon 
to Venice, stay our allotted time there, and 
then go homeward : you will of course ad- 
dress letters to Venice, not this place : it is a 



472 ROBERT BROWNING. 

pleasure I promise myself that, on arriving 
I shall certainly hear you speak in a letter 
which I count upon finding. 

The old inn here, to which I would fain 
have betaken myself, is gone — leveled to 
the ground : I remember it was much dam- 
aged by a recent earthquake, and the cracks 
and chasms may have threatened a downfall. 
This Stella d' Oro is, however, much such an 
unperverted locanda as its predecessor — 
primitive indeed are the arrangements and 
unsophisticate the ways : but there is cleanli- 
ness, abundance of goodwill, and the sweet 
Italian smile at every mistake : we get on ex- 
cellently. To be sure, never was such a per- 
fect fellow-traveler, for my purposes, as S., so 
that I have no subject of concern — if things 
suit me they suit her — and vice versa. I dare 
say she will have told you how we trudged 
together, this morning to Posmgno — through 
a lovely country : how we saw all the wonders 
— and a wonder of detestability is the paint- 
performance of the great man ! — and how, 
on our return, we found the little town enjoy- 



THE CHARM DISPELLED. 473 

ing high market day, and its privilege of roar- 
ing and screaming over a bargain. It eon° 
fuses me altogether — but at Venice I may 
write more comfortably. You will till then^, 
dear friend, remember me ever as yours affec= 
tionately, 

Robert Browning. 

If the tone of this does not express disap- 
pointment, it has none of the rapture which 
his last visit was to inspire. The charm which 
forty years of remembrance had cast around 
the httle city on the hill was dispelled, for, at 
all events, the time being. The hot weather 
and dust-covered landscape, with the more 
than primitive accommodation of which he 
spoke in a letter to another friend, may have 
contributed somethino^ to this result. 

At Venice the travelers fared better in some 
essential respects. A London acquaintance, 
who passed them on their way to Italy, had 
recommended a cool and quiet hotel there, the 
Albergo deir Universo. The house, Palazzo 
Brandolin-Rota, was situated on the shady 



474 ROBERT BROWNING. 

side of the Grand Canal, just below the Ac-' 
cademia and the Suspension Bridge. The 
open stretches of the Guidecca lay not far 
behind ; and a scrap of garden and a clean 
and open little street made pleasant the ap- 
proach from back and side. It accommodated 
few persons in proportion to its size, and fewer 
still took up their abode there ; for it was man- 
aged by a lady of good birth and fallen for- 
tunes whose home and patrimony it had been ; 
and her husband, a retired Austrian officer, 
and two grown-up daughters, did not lighten 
her task. Every year the fortunes sank 
lower : the upper story of the house was al- 
ready falling into decay, and the fine old fur- 
niture passing into the brokers' or private 
buyers' hands. It still, however, afforded suf- 
ficiently comfortable, and, by reason of its 
very drawbacks, desirable quarters to Mr. 
Browning. It perhaps turned the scale in 
favor of his return to Venice ; for the lady 
whose hospitality' he was to enjoy there was 
as yet unknown to him ; and nothing would 
have induced him to enter, with his eyes open, 



VENICE. 475 

one of the English-haunted hotels, in which 
acquaintance, old and new, would daily greet 
him in the public rooms, or jostle him in the 
corridors. 

He and his sister remained at the Universo 
for a fortnight ; their programme did not this 
year include a longer stay ; but it gave them 
time to decide that no place could better suit 
them for an autumn holiday than Venice, or 
better lend itself to a preparatory sojourn 
among the Alps ; and the plan of their next, 
and, though they did not know it, many a 
following summer, was thus sketched out be- 
fore the homeward journey had begun. 

Mr. Browning did not forget his work, even 
while resting from it ; if indeed he did rest 
entirely on this occasion. He consulted a 
Russian lady whom he met at the hotel, on 
the names he was introducing in " Ivan Ivan- 
ovitch." It would be interesting to know 
what suggestions or corrections she made, and 
how far they adapted themselves to the rhythm 
already established, or compelled changes in 
it ; but the one alternative would as little have 



476 ROBERT BROWNING. 

troubled him as the other. Mrs. Browning 
told Mr. Prinsep that her husband could 
never alter the wording of a poem without re- 
writing it, indeed, practically converting it into 
another ; though he more than once tried to 
do so at her instigation. But to the end of 
his life he could at any moment recast a line 
or passage for the sake of greater correctness, 
and leave all that was essential in it un- 
touched. 

Seven times more in the eleven years which 
remained to him, Mr. Browning spent the au- 
tumn in Venice. Once also, in 1882, he had 
proceeded towards it as far as Verona, when 
the floods which marked the autumn of that 
year arrested his farther course. Each time 
he had halted first in some more or less ele- 
vated spot, generally suggested by his French 
friend. Monsieur Dourlans, himself an inveter- 
ate wanderer, whose inclinations also tempted 
him off the beaten track. The places he most 
enjoyed were Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse, and 
Gressoney Saint-Jean, where he stayed respec- 
tively in 1881 and 1882, 1883 and 1885. 



FAVORITE ALPINE RETREATS. 477 

Both of these had the drawbacks, and what 
might easily have been the dangers, of remote- 
ness from the civilized world. But this 
weighed with him so little that he remained 
there in each case till the weather had broken^ 
though there was no sheltered conveyance in 
which he and his sister could travel down; 
and on the later occasions at least, circum- 
stances might easily have combined to prevent 
their departure for an indefinite time. He 
became, indeed, so attached to Gressoney, 
with its beautiful outlook upon Monte Rosa, 
that nothing, I believe, would have hindered 
his returning, or at least contemplating a re- 
turn to it, but the great fatigue to his sister 
of the mule ride up the mountain, by a path 
which made walking, wherever possible, the 
easier course. They did walk down it. in the 
early October of 1885, and completed the hard 
seven hours' trudge to San Martino d' Aosta, 
without an atom of refreshment or a. minute's 
rest. 

One of the great attractions of Saint-Pierre 
was the vicinity of the Grande Chartreuse, to 



478 ROBERT BROWNING. 

which Mr. Browning made frequent expedi- 
tions, staying there through the night in 
order to hear the midnight mass. Miss 
Browning also once attempted the visit, but 
was not allowed to enter the monastery. She 
slept in the adjoining convent. 

The brother and sister were again at the 
Universo in 1879, 1880, and 1881 ; but the 
crash was rapidly approaching, and soon after- 
wards it came. The old Palazzo passed into 
other hands, and after a short period of pri- 
vate ownership was consigned to the purposes 
of an art gallery. 

In 1880, however, they had been intro- 
duced by Mrs. Story to an American resi- 
dent, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, and entered into 
most friendly relations with her ; and when, 
after a year's interval, they were again con- 
templating an autumn in Venice, she placed 
at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Pa- 
lazzo Giustiniani Recanati, which formed a 
supplement to her own house — making the 
offer with a kindly urgency which forbade all 
thought of declining it. They inhabited these 



MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON. 479 

for a second time in 1885, keeping house for 
themselves in the simple but comfortable for- 
eign manner they both so well enjoyed, only 
dining and spending the evening with their 
friend. But when, in 1888, they were going;, 
as they thought, to repeat the arrangement, 
they found, to their surprise, a little apart- 
ment prepared for them under Mrs. Bronson's 
own roof. This act of hospitality involved a 
special kindness on her part, of which Mr. 
Browning only became aware at the close 
of a prolonged stay ; and a sense of increased 
gratitude added itself to the affectionate re- 
gard with which his hostess had already in- 
spired both his sister and him. So far as he 
is concerned, the fact need only be indicated. 
It is fully expressed in the preface to " Aso- 
lando." 

During the first and fresher period of Mr. 
Browning's visits to Venice, he found a pass- 
ing attraction in its society. It held an his- 
torical element which harmonized well with 
the decayed magnificence of the city, its. old- 
world repose, and the- comparatively simple 



480 ROBERT BROWNING. 

modes of intercourse still prevailing there. 
Mrs. Bronson's salon was hospitably open 
whenever her health allowed ; but her natural 
refinement, and the conservatism which so 
strongly marks the higher class of Americans;, 
preserved it from the heterogeneous charac- 
ter which Anglo-foreign sociability so often 
assumes. Very interesting, even important 
names lent their prestige to her circle ; and 
those of Don Carlos and his family, of Prince 
and Princess Iturbide, of Prince and Princess 
Metternich, and of Princess Montenegro were 
on the list of her habitues, and, in the case 
of the royal Spaniards, of her friends. It 
need hardly be said that the great English 
poet, with his fast spreading reputation and 
his infinite social charm, w^as kindly welcomed 
and warmly appreciated amongst them. 

English and American acquaintances also 
congregated in Venice, or passed through it 
from London, Florence, and Rome. Those 
resident in Italy could make their visits coin- 
cide with those of Mr. Browning and his sis= 
ter, or undertake the journey for the sake of 



LIFE IN VENICE. 481 

seeino" them ; while the outward conditions 
of H£e were such as to ^render friendly inter- 
course more satisfactory, and common social 
civihties less irksome than they could be at 
home. Mr. Browning was, however, already 
too advanced in years, too familiar with ev- 
erything which the world can give, to be 
long affected by the novelty of these expe- 
riences. It was inevitable that the need of 
rest, though often for the moment forgotten, 
should assert itself more and more. He grad- 
ually declined on the society of a small num- 
ber of resident or semi-resident friends ; and, 
due exception being made for the hospitalities 
of his temporary home, became indebted to 
the kindness of Sir Henry and Lady Layard, 
of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Palazzo Barbaro, 
and of Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Eden, for most 
of the social pleasure and comfort of his later 
residences in Venice. 

Part of a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald gives an 
insight into the character of his life there : all 
the strong-er that it was written under a tem- 
porary depression which it partly serves to 
explain. 



482 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Albergo dell' Universo, Venezia, Italia, 
September 24, 1881. 

Dear Friend, — On arriving here I found 
your letter to my great satisfaction — and 
yesterday brought the " Saturday Eeview " — 
for which, many thanks. 

We left our strange but lovely place on 
the 18th, reaching Chambery at evening — 
stayed the next day there — walking, among 
other diversions, to " Les Charmettes," the 
famous abode of Rousseau — kept much as 
when he left it : I visited it with my wife per- 
haps twenty-five years ago, and played so 
much of " Rousseau's Dream " as could be 
effected on his antique harpsichord : this time 
I attempted the same feat, but only two notes 
or thereabouts out of the octave would answer 
the touch. Next morning we proceeded to 
Turin, and on Wednesday got here, in the 
middle of the last night of the Congress Car- 
nival — rowing up the canal to our Albergo 
through a dazzling blaze of lights and throng 
of boats — there being, if we are told truly, 
50,000 strangers in the city. Rooms had 



LETTER TO MRS. FITZ-GERALD. 483 

been secured for us, however : and the festivi- 
ties are at an end, to my great joy — for 
Venice "is resuming its old quiet aspect — the 
only one I value at all. Our American friends 
wanted to take us in their gondola to see the 
principal illuminations after the " Serenade,'' 
which was not over before midnight — but I 
was contented with that — being tired and 
indisposed for talking, and, having seen and 
heard quite enough from our own balcony, 
went to bed : S. having betaken her to her 
own room long before. 

Next day we took stock of our acquaint- 
ances- — found that the Storys, on whom we 
had counted for company, were at Yallom- 
brosa, though the two sons have a studio here 
— other friends are in sufficient number, how- 
ever — and last evenino^ we bes^an our visits 
by a very classical one — to the Countess 
Mocenigo, in her palace which Byron occupied : 
she is a charming widow since two years — 
young, pretty, and of the prettiest manners : 
she showed us all the rooms Byron had lived 
in — and I wrote my name in her album on 



484 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the desk himself wrote the last canto of " Ch. 
Harold " and " Beppo " upon. There was a 
small party : we were taken and introduced 
by the Layards, who are kind as ever, and I 
met old friends — Lord Aberdare, Charles 
Bowen, and others. While I write comes a 
deliciously fresh bouquet from Mrs. Bronson, 
an American lady — in short we shall find a 
week or two amusing enough ; though — 
where are the pine-woods, mountains and tor- 
rents, and wonderful air ? Venice is under a 
cloud — dull and threatening — though we 
were apprehensive of heat, arriving, as we did, 
ten days earlier than last year. . . . 

The evening's programme was occasionally 
varied by a visit to one of the theatres. The 
plays given were chiefly in the Venetian dia- 
lect, and needed previous study for their en- 
joyment ; but Mr. Browning assisted at one 
musical performance which strongly appealed 
to his historical and artistic sensibilities : that 
of the " Barbiere " of Paisiello in the Kossini 
theatre and in the presence of Wagner, which 
took place in the autumn of 1880. 



PLEASURABLE EXERCISE. 485 

Although the manner of his sojourn in the 
Itahan city placed all the resources of resident 
life at his command, Mr. Browning never ab- 
jured the active habits of the English trav- 
eler. He daily walked with his sister, as he 
did in the mountains, for walking's sake, as 
well as for the delight of what his expeditions 
showed him; and the facilities which they 
supplied for this healthful pleasurable exercise 
were to his mind one of the great merits of 
his autumn residences in Italy. He explored 
Venice in all directions, and learned to know 
its many points of beauty and interest, as 
those cannot who believe it is only to be seen 
from a gondola ; and when he had visited its 
every corner, he fell back on a favorite stroll 
along the Riva to the public garden and back 
ao-ain; never failing to leave the house at 
about the same hour of the day. Later still, 
when a friend's gondola was always at hand, 
and air and sunshine were the one thing need- 
ful, he would be carried to the Lido, and take 
a long stretch on its farther shore. 

The letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, from which 



486 ROBERT BROWNING. 

I have already quoted, concludes with the 
account of a tragic occurrence which took 
place at Saint-Pierre just before his depar- 
ture, and in which Mr. Browning's intuitions 
had played a striking part. 

" And what do you think befell us in this 
abode of peace and innocence ? Our journey 
was delayed for three hours in consequence of 
the one mule of the village being requisi- 
tioned by the Juge d^ Insbncction from Gre- 
noble, come to inquire into a murder com- 
mitted two days before. My sister and I used 
once a day to walk for a couple of hours up a 
mountain-road of the most lovely description, 
and stop at the summit, whence we looked 
down upon the minute hamlet of Saint-Pierre 
d'Entremont — even more secluded than our 
own : then we got back to our own aforesaid. 
And in this Paradisial place, they found, yes- 
terday week, a murdered man — frightfully 
mutilated — who had been caught apparently 
in the act of stealing potatoes in a field : such 
a crime had never occurred in the memory of 
the oldest of our folk. Who was the mur- 



J TRAGEDY AT SAINT-PIERRE. 487 

derer is the mystery — whether the field's 
owner — in his irritation at discovering the 
i>obber — or one of a band o£ similar char- 
honniers (for they suppose the man to be a 
Piedmontese of that occupation) remains to 
be proved: they began by imprisoning the 
owner, who denies his guilt energetically. 
Now the odd thing is, that, either the day of, 
or after the murder — as I and S. were look- 
ins' at the utter solitude, I had the fancy 
' What should I do if I suddenly came upon 
a dead body in this field? Go and proclaim 
it — and subject myself to all the vexations 
inflicted by the French way of procedure 
(which begins by assuming that you may be 
the criminal) — or neglect an obvious duty, 
and return silently.' I, of course, saw that 
the former was the only proper course, what- 
ever the annoyance involved. And, all the 
while, there was just about to be the very 
same incident for the trouble of somebody." 

Here the account breaks off ; but writing 
again from the same place, August 16, 1882, 
he takes up the suspended narrative with this 
question : — 



488 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" Did I tell you of what happened to me on 
the last day of my stay here last year ? " And 
after repeating the main facts continues as 
follows : — 

" This morning, in the course of my walk^ 
I entered into conversation with two persons 
of whom I made inquiry myself. They said 
the accused man, a simple person, had been 
locked up in a high chamber — protesting 
his innocence strongly — and troubled in his 
mind by the affair altogether and the turn it 
was taking, had profited by the gendarme's 
negligence, and thrown himself out of the 
window — and so died, continuing to the last 
to protest as before. My presentiment of 
what such a person might have to undergo 
was justified, you see — though I should not 
in any case have taken that way of getting 
out of the difficulty. The man added, ^It 
was not he who committed the murder, but 
the companions of the man, an Italian char- 
coal-burner, who owed him a grudge, killed 
him, and dragged him to the field — filling 
his sack with potatoes as if stolen, to give a 



A PRESENTIMENT. 489 

likelihood that the field's owner had caught 
him stealino^ and killed him — so M. Perrier 
the greffier told me.' Enough of this grim 
story. 

9 • • •• • • • • 

" My sister was anxious to know exactly 
where the body was found : ' Vous savez la 
croix cm sommet de la collme ? A cette dis- 
tance de cela ! ' That is precisely where I 
was standing when the thought came over 
me. 

A passage in a subsequent letter of Sep- 
tember 3 clearly refers to some comment of 
Mrs. Fitz-Gerald's on the pecuHar nature of 
this presentiment : — 

" No, I attribute no sort of supernatural- 
ism to my fancy about the thing that was 
really about to take place. By a law of the 
association of ideas — contraries come into 
the mind as often as similarities — and the 
peace and solitude readily called up the no= 
tion of what would most jar with them. I 
have often thought of the trouble that might 
have befallen me if poor Miss Smith's death 



490 ROBERT BROWNING. 

had happened the night before, when we were 
on the mountain alone together — or next 
morning when we were on the proposed ex- 
cursion — only then we should have had com- 
panions." 

The letter then passes to other subjects : — 
" This is the fifth magnificent day — like 
magnificence, unfit for turning to much ac- 
count, for we cannot walk till sunset. I had 
two hours' walk, or nearly, before breakfast, 
however. It is the loveliest country I ever 
had experience of, and we shall prolong our 
stay, perhaps. Apart from the concern for 
poor Cholmohdeley and his friends, I should 
be glad to apprehend no long journey — be- 
sides the annoyance of having to pass Flor- 
ence and Rome unvisited, for S.'s sake, I 
mean : even Naples would have been with its 
wonderful environs a tantalizing impractica- 
bility. 

" Your ' Academy ' came and was wel- 
comed. The newspaper is like an electric eel, 
as one touches it and expects a shock. I am 
very anxious about the Archbishop, who has 
always been strangely kind to me." 



MR. CHOLMONDELEY. 491 

He and his sister had accepted an invita- 
tion to spend the month of October with Mr. 
Cholmondeley at his villa in Ischia ; but the 
party assembled there was broken up by the 
death of one of Mr. Cholmondeley's guests^ 
a young lady who had imprudently attempted 
the ascent of a dangerous mountain without a 
guide, and who lost her life in the experi- 
ment. 

A short extract from a letter to Mrs. 
Charles Skirrow will show that even in this 
complete seclusion Mr. Browning's patriotism 
did not go to sleep. There had been already 
sufficient evidence that his friendship did not ; 
but it was not in the nature of his mental 
activities that they should be largely absorbed 
by politics, though he followed the course of 
his country's history as a necessary part of his 
own life. It needed a crisis like that of our 
Egyptian campaign, or the subsequent Irish 
struggle, to arouse him to a full emotional 
participation in current events. How deeply 
he could be thus aroused remained yet to be 
seen. 



492 ROBERT BROWNING. 

" If the George Smiths are still with you, 
give them my love, and tell them we shall 
expect to see them at Venice — which was 
not so likely to be the case when we were 
bound for Ischia. As for Lady Wolseley — 
one dares not pretend to vie with her in anx- 
iety just noAv ; but my own pulses beat prett}^ 
strongly when I open the day's newspaper — 
which, by some new arrangement, reaches us, 
oftener than not, on the day after publication. 
Where is your Bertie ? I had an impassioned 
letter, a fortnight ago, from a nephew of 
mine, who is in the second division [bat- 
talion ?] of the Black Watch. He was or- 
dered to Edinburgh, and the regiment not 
dispatched, after all — it having just returned 
from India. The poor fellow wrote, in his 
despair, ' to know if I could do anything ! ' 
He may be wanted yet : though nothing seems 
wanted in Egypt, so capital appears to be the 
management." 

In 1879 Mr. Browning published the first 
series of his " Dramatic Idyls ; " and their ap- 
pearance sent a thrill of surprised admiration 



*' DRAMATIC IDYLSr 493 

through the piibHc mind. In "La Saisiaz " 
and the accompanying poems he had accom- 
phshed what was virtually a life's work. For 
he was approaching the appointed limit of 
man's existence ; and the poetic, which had 
been nourished in him by the natural life — 
which had once outstripped its developments, 
but on the whole remained subject to them 
— had therefore, also, passed through the 
successive phases of individual growth. He 
had been inspired as dramatic poet by the one 
avowed conviction that little else is worth 
study but the history of a soul ; and outward 
act or circumstance had only entered into his 
creations as condition or incident of the given 
psychological state. His dramatic imagina- 
tion had first, however unconsciously, sought 
its materials in himself ; then gradually been 
projected into the world of men and women, 
which his widening knowledge laid open to 
him ; it is scarcely necessary to say that its 
power was only fully revealed when it left the 
remote regions of poetical and metaphysical 
self-consciousness, to invoke the not less mys- 



494 ROBERT BROWNING. 

terious and far more searching utterance of 
the 2:eneral human heart. It was a matter of 
course that in this expression of his dramatic 
genius, the intellectual and emotional should 
exhibit the varying relations which are de- 
veloped by the natural life : that feeling 
should begin by doing the work of thought, 
as in "Saul," and thought end by doing the 
work of feeling, as in " Fifine at the Fair ; " 
and that the two should alternate or combine 
in proportioned intensity in such works of an 
intermediate period as " Cleon," " A Death in 
the Desert," the "Epistle of Karshish," and 
" James Lee's Wife ; " the sophistical ingenu- 
ities of " Bishop Blougram," and " Sludge ; " 
and the sad, appealing tenderness of " Andrea 
del Sarto " and " The Worst of It." 

It was also almost inevitable that so vigor- 
ous a genius should sometimes falsify calcu- 
lations based on the normal life. The long 
continued force and freshness of Mr. Brown- 
ing^s general faculties was in itself a protest 
against them. We saw without surprise that 
during the decade which produced " Prince 



A NEW DEPARTURE. 495 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau," " Fifme at the Fair," 
and " Red Cotton Nightcap Country " he 
could give us " The Inn Album," with its 
expression of the higher sexual love unsur° 
passed, rarely equaled, in the whole range of 
his work : or those two unique creations of 
airy fancy and passionate symbolic romance, 
" Saint Martin's Summer " and " Numpholep- 
tos." It was no ground for astonishment 
that the creative power in him should even 
ignore the usual period of decline, and defy, 
so far as is humanly possible, its natural laws 
of modification. But in the " Dramatic 
Idyls " he did more than proceed with un- 
flagging powers on a long-trodden, distinctive 
course ; he took a new departure. 

Mr. Browning did not forsake the drama of 
motive when he imagined and worked out his 
new group of poems ; he presented it in a no 
less subtle and complex form. But he gave 
it the added force of picturesque realization ; 
and this by means of incidents both powerful 
in themselves and especially suited for its 
development. It was only in proportion to 



496 ROBERT BROWNING. 

this higher suggestiveness that a startling sit- 
uation ever seemed to him fit subject for 
poetry. Where its interest and excitement 
exhausted themselves in the external facts, it 
became, he thought, the property of the 
chronicler, but supplied no material for the 
poet ; and he often declined matter which had 
been offered him for dramatic treatment be- 
cause it belonged to the more sensational cate- 
gory. 

It is part of the vital quality of the " Dra- 
matic Idyls " that in them the act and the 
motive are not yet finally identified with each 
other. We see the act still palpitating with 
the motive ; the motive dimly striving to rec- 
ognize or disclaim itself in the act. It is in 
this that the psychological poet stands more 
than ever strongly revealed. Such at least is 
the case in " Martin Relph," and the idealized 
Russian legend " Ivan Ivanovitch." The gro- 
tesque tragedy of " Ned Bratts " has also its 
marked psychological aspects, but they are of 
a simpler and broader kind. 

The new inspiration slowly subsided through 



''FERISHTAH'S FANCIES." 497 

the second series of " Idyls/' 1880, r.nd " Jo- 
coseria," 1883. In " FerisLtah's Fancies/' 
1884, Mr. Browning returned to his original 
manner, though carrying into it something of 
the renewed vig^or which had marked the in- 
tervening change. The lyrics which alternate 
with its parables include some of the most 
tender, most impassioned, and most musical of 
his love-poems. 

The moral and religious opinions conveyed 
in this later volume may be accepted without 
reserve as Mr. Browning's own, if we subtract 
from them the exaggerations of the figurative 
and dramatic form. It is indeed easy to 
recoo^nize in them the undercurrents of his 
whole real and imaginative life. They have 
also on one or two points an intrinsic value 
which will justify a later allusion. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

1881-1887. 

The Browning Society ; Mr. Furnivall ; Miss E. H. Hickey. 

— His Attitude towards the Society ; Letter to Mrs. 
Fitz-Gerald. — Mr, Thaxter; Mrs. Celia Thaxter. — Letter 
to Miss Hickey ; " Strafford." — Shakspere and Words- 
worth Societies. — Letters to Professor Knight. — Apprecia- 
tion in Italy ; Professor Xencioni. — The Goldoni Sonnet. 

— Mr. Barrett Browning; Palazzo Manzoni. — Letters to 
Mrs. Charles Skirrow. — Mrs. Bloomfield Moore. — Llan- 
gollen ; Sir Theodore and Lady Martin. — Loss of old 
Friends. — Foreign Correspondent of the Royal Academy. 

— " Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their 
Day." 

This Indian summer of Mr. Browning's 
genius coincided with the highest manifesta- 
tion of public interest which he, or with one 
exception, any living writer, had probably yet 
received : the establishment of a Society bear- 
ing his name, and devoted to the study of his 
poetry. The idea arose almost simultaneously 
in the mind of Dr., then Mr. Furnivall, and 



THE BROWNING SOCIETY. 499 

Miss E. H. Hickey. One day, in the July of 
1881, as they were on their way to Warwick 
Crescent to pay an appointed visit there, Miss 
Hickey strongly expressed her opinion of the 
power and breadth of Mr. Browning's work ; 
and concluded by saying that much as she 
loved Shakespeare, she found in certain aspects 
of Browning what even Shakespeare could not 
give her. Mr. Furnivall replied to this by ask- 
ing what she would say to helping him to 
found a Browning Society ; and it then ap- 
peared that Miss Hickey had recently written 
to him a letter, suggesting that he should 
found one ; but that it had miscarried, or, as 
she was disposed to think, not been posted. 
Being thus, at all events, agreed as to the fit- 
ness of the undertaking, they immediately 
spoke of it to Mr. Browning, who at first 
treated the project as a joke ; but did not 
oppose it when once he understood it to be 
serious. His only proviso was that he should 
remain neutral in respect to its fulfillment. 
He refused even to give Mr. Furnivall the 
name or address of any friends whose interest 



500 ROBERT BROWNING. 

in himself or his work might render their 
cooperation probable. 

This passive assent sufficed. A printed pro- 
spectus was now issued. About two hundred 
members were soon secured. A committee was 
elected, of which Mr. J. T. Nettleship, already 
well known as a Browning student, was one 
of the most conspicuous members ; and by the 
end of October a small Society had come into 
existence, which held its inaugural meeting in 
the Botanic Theatre of University College. 
Mr. Furnivall, its principal founder, and re- 
sponsible organizer, was Chairman of the Com- 
mittee, and Miss E. H. Hickey, the co-founder, 
was Honorary Secretary. When, two or three 
years afterwards, illness compelled her to re- 
sign this position, it was assumed by Mr. J. 
Dykes Campbell. 

Although nothing could be more unpre- 
tending than the action of this Browning So- 
ciety, or in the main more genuine than its 
motive, it did not begin life without encoun- 
tering ridicule and mistrust. The formation 
of a Ruskin Society in the previous year 



CRITICISMS PROVOKED BY IT. 601 

had already established a precedent for allow- 
ing a still living worker to enjoy the fruits of 
his work, or, as some one termed it, for mak- 
ing a man a classic during his lifetime. But 
this fact was not yet generally known ; and 
meanwhile a curious contradiction developed 
itself in the popular mind. The outer world 
of Mr. Browning's acquaintance continued 
to condemn the too great honor which was 
being done to him ; from those of the inner 
circle he constantly received condolences on 
being made the subject of proceedings which, 
according to them, he must somehow regard 
as an offense. 

This was the last view of the case which he 
was prepared to take. At the beginning,- as 
at the end, he felt honored by the intentions 
of the Society. He probably, it is true, had 
occasional misgivings as to its future. He 
could not be sure that its action would always 
be judicious, still less that it would be always 
successful. He was prepared for its being 
laughed at, and for himself being included in 
the laughter. He consented to its establish- 



502 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ment for what seemed to him the one unan- 
swerable reason, that he had, even on the 
ground of taste, no just cause for forbidding" 
it. No line, he considered, could be drawn 
between the kind of publicity which every 
writer seeks, which, for good or evil, he had 
already obtained, and that which the Brown- 
ing Society was conferring on him. His 
works would still, as before, be read, analyzed, 
and discussed viva voce and in print. That 
these proceedings would now take place in 
other localities than drawing-rooms or clubs, 
through other organs than newspapers or mag- 
azines, by other and larger groups of persons 
than those usually gathered round a dinner 
or a tea table, involved no real change in 
the situation. In any case, he had made 
himself public property ; and those who thus 
organized their study of him were exercising 
an individual right. If his own rights had 
been assailed he would have guarded them 
also ; but the circumstances of the case pre- 
cluded such a contingency. And he had his 
reward. How he felt towards the Society at 



APPRECIATION OF KINDNESS. 503 

the close of its first session is better indicated 
in the following letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald 
than in the note to Mr. Yates which Mr. 
Sharp has published, and which was written 
with more reserve and, I believe, at a rather 
earlier date. Even the shade of condescension 
which lingers about his words will have been 
effaced by subsequent experience ; and many 
letters written to Dr. Furnivall must, since 
then, have attested his grateful and affection- 
ate appreciation of kindness intended and 
service done to him. 

. . . They always treat me gently in 
" Punch " — why don't you do the same by 
the Browning Society ? I see you emphasize 
Miss Hickey's acknowledgment of defects in 
time and want of rehearsal : but I look for no 
great perfection in a number of kindly dis- 
posed strangers to me personally, who try to 
interest people in my poems by singing and 
reading them. They give their time for noth- 
ing, offer their little entertainment for noth- 
ing, and certainly get next to nothing in the 



604 ROBERT BROWNING. 

way of thanks — unless from myself who feel 
grateful to the faces I shall never see, the 
voices I shall never hear. The kindest no- 
tices I have had, or at all events those that 
have given me most pleasure, have been 
educed by this Society — A. Si dg wick's pa- 
per, that of Professor Corson, Miss Lewis's 
article in this month's " Macmillan " — and I 
feel grateful for it all, for my part — and 
none the less for a little amusement at the 
wonder of some of my friends that I do not 
jump up and denounce the practices which 
must annoy me so much. Oh ! my " gentle 
Shakespeare," how well you felt and said — 
" never anything can be amiss when simple- 
ness and duty tender it." So, dear Lady, 
here is my duty and simplicity tendering itself 
to you, with all affection besides, and I being 
ever yours, R. Brownikg. 

That general disposition of the London 
world which left the ranks of the little Society 
to be three fourths recruited among persons, 
many living at a distance, whom the poet did 



MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. 505 

not know, became also in its way a satisfac- 
tion. It was with him a matter of course, 
though never of indifference, that his closer 
friends of both sexes were anioncr its mem- 
bers ; it was one of real gratification that they 
included from the beginning such men as 
Dean Boyle of Salisbury, the Rev. Llewellyn 
Davies, George Meredith, and James Cotter 
Morison — that they enjoyed the sympathy 
and co5peration of such a one as Archdeacon 
Farrar. But he had an ingenuous pride in 
reading the large remainder of the Society's 
lists of names, and pointing out the fact that 
there was not one among^ them which he had 
ever heard. It was equivalent to saying, 
" All these people qare for me as a poet. 
No social interest, no personal prepossession, 
has attracted them to my work." And when 
the unknown name was not only appended to 
a list ; when it formed the signature of a pa- 
per — excellent or indifferent as might be, 
but in either case bearing witness to a careful 
and unobtrusive study of his poems — by so 
much was the gratification increased. He sel- 



506 ROBERT BROWNING. 

dom weighed the intrinsic merit of such pro- 
ductions ; he did not read them critically. No 
man was ever more adverse to the seeming un- 
graciousness of analyzing the quality of a gift. 
In real life indeed this power of gratitude 
sometimes defeated its own end, by neutraliz- 
ino^ his insio^ht into the motive or effort in- 
volved in different acts of kindness, and plac- 
ing them all successively on the same plane. 

In the present case, however, an ungradu- 
ated acceptance of the labor bestowed on him 
was part of the neutral attitude which it was 
his constant endeavor to maintain. He always 
refrained from noticing any erroneous state- 
ment concerning himself or his works which 
might appear in the Papers of the Society : 
since, as he alleged, if he once began to cor- 
rect, he would appear to indorse whatever he 
left uncorrected, and thus make himself re- 
sponsible, not only for any interpretation that 
might be placed on his poems, but, what was 
far more serious, for every eulogium that was 
bestowed upon them. He could not stand 
aloof as entirely as he or even his friends de- 



HIS NEUTRAL POSITION. 607 

sired, since it was usual with some members of 
the Society to seek from him ehicidations of 
obscure passages which, without these, it was 
dechired, would be a stumbling-block to fu- 
ture readers. But he disliked beino^ even to 
this extent drawn into its operation ; and his 
help was, I believe, less and less frequently 
invoked. Nothing could be more false than 
the rumor which once arose that he superin- 
tended those performances of his plays which 
took place under the direction of the Society. 
Once only, and by the urgent desire of some 
of the actors, did he witness a last rehearsal 
of one of them. 

It was also a matter of course that men and 
women brought together by a preexisting in- 
terest in Mr. Browninfy's work should often 
ignore its authorized explanations, and should 
read and discuss it in the light of personal im- 
pressions more congenial to their own mind ; 
and the various and circumstantial views some- 
times elicited by a given poem did not serve 
to render it more intelligible. But the merit 
of true poetry lies so largely in its suggestive- 



508 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ness, that even mistaken impressions of it have 
their positive value and also their relative 
truth ; and the intellectual friction which was 
thus created, not only in the parent society, 
but in its offshoots in England and America, 
was not their least important result. 

These Societies conferred, it need hardly be 
said, no less real benefits on the public at 
large. They extended the sale of Mr. Brown- 
ing's works, and with it their distinct influ- 
ence for intellectual and moral good. They 
not only created in many minds an interest in 
these works, but aroused the interest where it 
was latent, and gave it expression where it 
had hitherto found no voice. One fault, alone, 
could be charged against them ; and this lay 
partly in the nature of all friendly concerted 
action : they stirred a spirit of enthusiasm in 
which it was not easy, under conditions equally 
genuine, to distinguish the individual element 
from that which was due to contagion ; while 
the presence among us of the still living poet 
often infused into that enthusiasm a vaguely 
emotional element, which otherwise detracted 



HIS BEST INFLUENCE PROMOTED. 509 

from its intellectual worth. But in so far as 
this was a drawback to the intended action of 
the Societies, it was one only in the most neg- 
ative sense ; nor can we doubt that, to a cer- 
tain extent, Mr. Browning's best influence was 
promoted by it. The hysterical sensibilities 
which, for some years past, he had uncon- 
sciously but not unfrequently aroused in the 
minds of women, and even of men, were a 
morbid development of that influence, which 
its open and systematic extension tended rather 
to diminish than to increase. 

It is also a matter of history that Robert 
Browning had many deep, and constant admir- 
ers in England, and still more in America,^ 
long before this organized interest had devel- 
oped itself. Letters received from often re- 
mote parts of the United States had been for 
many years a detail of his daily experience ; 
and even when they consisted of the request 
for an autograph, an application to print se- 

^ The cheapening of his works in America, induced by the 
absence of international copyright, accounts of course in some 
degree for their wider diffusion, and hence earlier apprecia- 
tion there. 



610 ROBERT BROWNING. 

lections from his works, or a mere expression 
of schoolboy pertness or schoolgirl sentimen- 
tality, they bore witness to his wide reputation 
in that country, and the high esteem in which 
he was held there.^ The names of Levi and 
Celia Thaxter of Boston had long, I believe, 
been conspicuous in the higher ranks of his 
disciples, though they first occur in his corre- 
spondence at about this date. I trust I may 
take for granted Mrs. Thaxter's permission to 
publish a letter from her. 

Newton viLLE, Massachusetts, 
March 14, 1880. 

My dear Mr. Browning, — Your note 
reached me this morning, but it belonged to 
my husband, for it was he who wrote to you ; 
so I gave it to him, glad to put into his hands 
so precious a piece of manuscript, for he has 
for you and all your work an enthusiastic ap- 
preciation such as is seldom found on this 
planet : it is not possible that the admiration 
of one mortal for another can exceed his feel- 
ing for you. You might have written for him, 

1 One of the most curious proofs of this was the Califor- 
nian Railway time-table edition of his poems. 



LETTER FROM CELIA THAXTER. 511 
I 've a friend over the sea, 

It all grew out of the books I write, etc. 

You should see liis fine wrath and scorn for 
the idiocy that does n't at once comprehend 
you ! 

He knows every word you have ever writ- 
ten ; long ago " Sordello " was an open book 
to him from title-page to closing line, and all 
you have printed since has been as eagerly and 
studiously devoured. He reads you aloud 
(and his reading is a fine art) to crowds of as- 
tonished people, he swears by you, he think > 
no one save Shakespeare has a right to be 
mentioned in the same century with you. You 
are the great enthusiasm of his life. 

Pardon me, you are smiling, I dare say. 
You hear any amount of such things, doubt- 
less. But a genuine living appreciation is al- 
ways worth having in this old world, it is like 
a strong fresh breeze from off the brine, that 
puts a sense of life and power into a mauc 
You cannot be the worse for it. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Celia Thaxter. 



512 ROBERT BROWNING. 

When Mr. Thaxter died, in February, 1885, 
his son wrote to Mr. Browning to beg of him 
a few lines to be inscribed on his father's 
tombstone. The little poem by which the re- 
quest was answered has not yet, I believe, been 
published. 

Written to be inscribed on the gravestone of Levi Thaxter. 
Thou, whom these eyes saw never, — say friends true 
Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, 
Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too ? 
I gave but of the little that I knew : 
How were the gift requited, while along 
Life's path I pace, could'st thou make weakness strong, 
Help me with knowledge — for Life 's old, Death 's new ! 

R.B. 

April 19, 1885. , 

A publication which connected itself with 
the labors of the Society, without being directly 
inspired by it, was the annotated " Strafford " 
prepared by Miss Hickey for the use of stu- 
dents. It may be agreeable to those who use 
the Httle work to know the estimate in which 
Mr. Browning held it. He wrote as follows : 

19 Warv^tick Crescent, W., 
February 15, 1884. 

Dear Miss Hickey, — I have returned the 
proofs by post, — nothing can be better than 



THE ANNOTATED ''STRAFFORD:' 513 

your notes — and with a real wish to be of 
use, I read them carefully that I might detect 
never so tiny a fault — but I found none — 
unless (to show you how minutely I searched), 
it should be one that by " thriving in yoiir 
contempt," I meant simply " while you de- 
spise them, and for all that, they thrive and are 
powerful to do you harm." The idiom you 
prefer — quite an authorized one — comes to 
much the same thing* after all. 

You must know how much I grieve at your 
illness — temporary as I will trust it to be. 
I feel all your goodness to me — or whatever 
in my books may be taken for me — well, I 
wish you knew how thoroughly I feel it — and 
how truly I am and shall ever be 
Yours affectionately, 

Robert Browning. 

From the time of the foundation of the 
New Shakspere Society, Mr. Browning was 
its president. In 1880 he became a member 
of the Wordsworth Society. Two interesting 
letters to Professor Knight, dated respectively 



514 ROBERT BROWNING. 

1880 and 1887, connect themselves with the 
working of the latter ; and, in spite of their 
distance in time, may therefore be given to= 
gether. The poem which formed the subject 
of the first was " The Daisy ; " ^ the selection 
referred to in the second was that made in 
1888 by Professor Knight for the Words- 
worth Society, with the cooperation of Mr. 
Browning and other eminent literary men, 

19 Warwick Crescent, W., 

July 9, 1880. 

My dear Sir, — You pay me a compliment 
in caring for my opinion — but, such as it is, 
a very decided one it must be. On every 
account, your method of giving the original 
text, and subjoining in a note the variations, 
each with its proper date, is incontestably pre- 
ferable to any other. It would be so, if the 
variations were even improvements — there 
would be pleasure as well as profit in seeing 
what was good grow visibly better. But — - 
to confine ourselves to the single " proof " you 

^ That beginning "In youth from rock to' rock, I went." 



DESECRATED STANZAS. 515 

have sent me — in every case the change is 
sadly for the worse : I am quite troubled by 
such spoilings of passage after passage as I 
should have chuckled at had I chanced upon 
them in some copy pencil-marked with correc- 
tions by Jeffrey or Gifford : indeed, they are 
nearly as wretched as the touchings-up of the 
^' Siege of Corinth " by the latter. If ever 
diabolic agency was caught at tricks with 
" apostolic " achievement (see page 9) — and 
" apostolic," with no " profanity " at all, I 
esteem these poems to be — surely you may 
bid it " aroint " " about and all about '^ these 
desecrated stanzas — each of which, however, 
thanks to your piety, we may hail, I trust, 
with a hearty 

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain 
Nor be less dear to future men 
Than in old time ! 

Believe me, my dear sir. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Robert Browning. 



516 ROBERT BROWNING. 



19 WAR\^^CK Crescent, W., 
March 23, 1887. 

Dear Professor Knight, — I have seemed 
to neglect your commission shamefully enough : 
but I confess to a sort of repugnance to clas- 
sifying the poems as even good and less good : 
because in my heart I fear I should do it al- 
most chronologically — so immeasurably supe- 
rior seem to me the " first sprightly runnings." 
Your selection would appear to be excellent ; 
and the partial admittance of the later work 
prevents one from observing the too definitely 
distinguishing black line between supremely 
good and — well, what is fairly tolerable — 
from Wordsworth, always understand ! I 
have marked a few of the early poems, not 
included in your list — 1 could do no other 
when my conscience tells me that I never can 
be tired of loving them : while, with the best 
will in the world, I could never do more than 
try hard to like them.^ 

^ By "them" Mr. Browning clearly means the later 
* poems, and probably has omitted a few words which would 
have shown this. 



NEW HONORS. 617 

You see, I go wholly upon my individual 
likings and distastes : that other considera- 
tions should have their weight with other peo- 
ple is natural and inevitable. 

Ever truly yours, 

Robert Browning. 

Many thanks for the volume just received 
— that with the correspondence. I hope that 
you restore the swan simile so ruthlessly cut 
away from " Dion." 

In 1884 he was again invited, and again 
declined, to stand for the Lord Rectorship of 
the University of St. Andrews. In the same 
year he received the LL. D. degree of the 
University of Edinburgh ; and in the follow- 
ing was made Honorary President of the As- 
sociated Societies of that city.^ During the 
few days spent there on the occasion of his 
investiture, he was the guest of Professor 

^ This Association was instituted in 1833, and is a union of 
literary and debating societies. It is at present composed of 
five : the Dialectic, Scots Law, Diagnostic, Philosophical,, 
and Phi lorn athic. 



518 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Masson, whose solicitous kindness to him is 
still warmly remembered in the family. 

The interest in Mr. Browning as a poet is 
beginning to spread in Germany. There is 
room for wonder that it should not have done 
so before, though the affinities of his genius 
are rather with the older than with the more 
modern German mind. It is much more re- 
markable that, many years ago, his work had 
already a sympathetic exponent in Italy. 
Signor Nencioni, Professor of Literature in 
Florence, had made his acquaintance at Siena, 
and was possibly first attracted to him through 
his wife, although I never heard that it was 
so. He was soon, however, fascinated by Mr. 
Browning's poetry, and made it an object of 
serious study ; he largely quoted from, and 
wrote on it, in the Roman paper " FanfuUa 
della Domenica," in 1881 and 1882 ; and 
published last winter what is, I am told, an 
excellent article on the same subject, in. the 
'' Nuova Antologia." Two years ago he trav- 
eled from Rome to Venice (accompanied by 
Signor Placci), for the purpose of seeing him. 



APPRECIATION IN ITALY. 519 

He is fond of reciting passages from the 
works, and lias even made attempts at transla- 
tion : thouofli he understands them too well 
not to pronounce them, what they are for 
every Latin language, untranslatable. 

In 1883 Mr. Browning added another link 
to the " golden " chain of verse which united 
England and Italy. A statue of Goldoni 
was about to be erected in Venice. The cer- 
emonies of the occasion were to include the 
appearance of a volume — or album — of ap- 
propriate poems ; and Cavaliere Molmenti, its 
intending editor, a leading member of the 
" Erection Committee," begged Mr. Browning 
to contribute to it. It was also desired that 
he should be present at the unveiling.^ He 
was unable to grant this request, but con- 
sented to write a poem. This sonnet to Gol- 
doni also deserves to be more widely known, 
both for itself and for the manner of its pro- 

1 It was, I think, during this visit to Venice that he as- 
sisted at a no less interesting ceremony : the unveiling of a 
commemorative tablet to Baldassaro Galuppi, in his native 
island of Burano. 



520 ROBERT BROWNING. 

duction. Mr. Browning had forgotten, or 
not understood, how soon the promise con- 
cerning it must be fulfilled, and it was actu- 
ally scribbled off while a messenger, sent by 
Signor Molmenti, waited for it. 

Goldoni, — good, gay, sunniest of souls, — 

Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine, — 

What though it just reflect the shade and shine 
Of common life, nor render, as it rolls, 
Grandeur and gloom ? Sufficient for thy shoals 

Was Carnival : Parini's depths enshrine 

Secrets unsuited to that opaline 
Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. 
There throng the people : how they come and go, 

Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb, — see, — 
On Piazza, Calle, under Portico 

And over Bridge ! Dear king of Comedy, 
Be honored ! Thou that didst love Venice so, 

Venice, and we who love her, all love thee ! 
Venice, November 27, 1883. 

A complete bibliography would take ac- 
count of three other sonnets, " The Founder 
of the Feast," 1884, "The Names," 1884, 
and " Why I am a Liberal," 1886, to which I 
shall have occasion to refer ; but we decline 
insensibly from these on to the less important 



PALAZZO MANZONL 521 

or more fugitive productions which such lists 
also include, and on which it is unneces- 
sary or undesirable that any stress should be 
laid. 

In 1885 he was joined in Venice by his 
son. It was " Penini's " first return to the 
country of his birth, his first experience of 
the city which he had only visited in his 
nurse's arms ; and his delight in it was so 
great that the plan shaped itself in his fa- 
ther's mind of buying a house there, which 
should serve as j^^^cl-a-terre for the family, 
but more especially as a home for him. 
Neither the health nor the energies of the 
younger Mr. Browning had ever withstood 
the influence of the London climate ; a for- 
eign element was undoubtedly present in his 
otherwise thoroughly English constitution. 
Everything now pointed to his settling in 
Italy, and pursuing his artist life there, only 
interrupting it by occasional visits to London 
and Paris. His father entered into negotia- 
tions for the Palazzo Manzoni, next door to 
the former Hotel de TUnivers ; and the pur- 



522 ROBERT BROWNING. 

chase was completed, so far as he was con- 
cerned, before he returned to England. The 
fact is related, and his own position towards 
it described in a letter to Mrs. Charles Skir- 
row, written from Venice. 

Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, S. Moise, 

November 15, 1885. 

My two dear friends will have supposed, 
with plenty of reason, that I never got the 
kind letter some weeks ago. When it came, 
I was in the middle of an affair, conducted 
by letters of quite another kind, with people 
abroad : and as I fancied that every next day 
might bring me news very interesting to me 
and likely to be worth telling to the dear 
friends, I waited and waited — and only two 
days since did the matter come to a satisfac- 
tory conclusion — so, as the Irish song has 
it, " Open your eyes and die with surprise " 
when I inform you that I have purchased the 
Manzoni Palace here, on the Canal Grande, 
of its owner, Marchese Montecucculi, an 
Austrian and an absentee — hence the delay 



LETTER TO MRS. CHARLES SKIRROW. 523 

of communication. I did this purely for Pen 
— who became at once simply infatuated with 
the city which won my whole heart long be- 
fore he was born or thought of. I secure 
him a perfect domicile, every facility for his 
painting and sculpture, and a property fairly 
worth, even here and now, double what I 
gave for it — such is the virtue in these parts 
of ready money ! I myself shall stick to 
London — which has been so eminently good 
and gracious to me — so long as God per- 
mits ; only, when the inevitable outrage of 
Time gets the better of my body — (I shall 
not believe in his reaching my soul and 
proper self) — there will be a capital retreat 
provided : and meantime I shall be able to 
" take mine ease in mine own inn " whenever 
so minded. There, my dear friends ! I trust 
now to be able to leave very shortly ; the 
main business cannot be formally concluded 
before two months at least — through the ab- 
sence of the Marchese — who left at once 
to return to his duties as commander of an 
Austrian ship ; but the necessary engagement 



624 ROBERT BROWNING. 

to sell and buy at a specified price is made in 
due legal form, and the papers will be sent 
to me in London for signature. I hope to 
get away the week after next at latest — 
spite of the weather in England which to- 
day's letters report as " atrocious " — and 
ours, though variable, is in the main very tol- 
erable and sometimes perfect ; for all that, I 
yearn to be at home in poor Warwick Cres- 
cent, which must do its best to make me for- 
get my new abode. I forget you don't know 
Venice. Well, then, the Palazzo Manzoni is 
situate on the Grand Canal, and is described 
by Euskin ~ to give no other authority — 
as " a perfect and very rich example of By- 
zantine Renaissance : its warm yellow marbles 
are magnificent." And again — " an exqui- 
site example (of Byzantine Renaissance) as 
applied to domestic architecture." So testify 
the " Stones of Venice." But we will talk 
about the place, over a photograph, when I 
am happy enough to be with you again. 

Of Venetian gossip there is next to none. 
We had an admirable Venetian Company — 



NEGOTIATIONS BROKEN OFF. 525 

usinsf the dialect — at the Goldoni Theatre. 
The acting of Zago, in his various parts, and 
Zenon-Palladini, in her especial character of a 
Venetian piece of volubiHty and impulsive- 
ness in the shape of a servant, were admirable 
indeed. The manager, GalHna, is a play- 
wright of much reputation, and gave us some 
dozen of his own pieces, mostly good and 
clever. S. is very well, — much improved in 
health : we walk sufficiently in this city, where 
walking is accounted impossible by those who 
never attempt it. Have I tired your good 
temper ? No ! you ever wished me well, and 
I love you both with my whole heart. S.'s 
love goes with mine — who am ever yours, 

Robert Browning. 

He never, however, owned the Manzoni 
Palace. The Austrian gentlemen ^ whose prop- 
erty it was, put forward, at the last moment, 
unexpected and to his mind unreasonable 
claims ; and he was preparing to contest the 
position, when a timely warning induced him 

1 Two or three brothers. 



526 ROBERT BROWNING. 

to withdraw from it altogether. The warning 
proceeded from his son, who had remained on 
the spot, and was now informed on competent 
authority that the foundations of the house 
were insecure. 

In the early summer of 1884, and again in 
1886, Miss Browning had a serious illness ; 
and though she recovered, in each case com- 
pletely, and in the first rapidly, it was consid- 
ered desirable that she should not travel so far 
as usual from home. She and her brother 
therefore accepted for the August and Sep- 
tember of 1884 the opportune invitation of an 
American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, to 
stay with her at a villa which she rented for 
some seasons at St. Moritz. Mr. Browning 
was delighted with the Engadine, where the 
circumstances of his abode, and the thought- 
ful kindness of his hostess, allowed him to 
enjoy the benefits of comparative civilization 
together with almost perfect repose. The 
weather that year was brilliant until the end 
of September, if not beyond it ; and his let- 
ters tell the old pleasant story of long daily 



LLANGOLLEN. 527 

walks and a general sense of invigoration. 
One of these, written to Mr. and Mrs. Skir- 
row, also contains some pungent remarks on 
contemporary events, with an affectionate allu- 
sion to one of the chief actors in them. 

" Anyhow, I have the sincerest hope that 
Wolseley may get done as soon, and kill as few 
people, as possible — keeping himself safe 
and sound — brave dear fellow — for the ben- 
efit of us all." 

He also speaks with great sympathy of the 
death of Mr. Charles Sartoris, which had just 
taken place at St. Moritz. 

In 1886, Miss Browning was not allowed to 
leave England; and she and Mr. Browning 
estabHshed themselves for the autumn at the 
Hand Hotel at Llangollen, where their old 
friends. Sir Theodore and Lady Martin, would 
be within easy reach. Mr. Browning missed the 
exhilarating effects of the Alpine air ; but he 
enjoyed the peaceful beauty of the Welsh val- 
ley, and the quiet and comfort of the old-fash- 
ioned Enoflish inn. A new source of interest 
also presented itself to him in some aspects of 



528 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the life of the English country gentleman. 
He was struck by the improvements effected 
by its actual owner ^ on a neighboring estate, 
and by the provisions contained in them for 
the comfort of both the men and the animals 
under his care ; and he afterwards made, in 
reference to them, what was for a professing 
Liberal a very striking remark : " Talk of 
abolishing that class of men ! They are the 
salt of the earth ! " Every Sunday afternoon 
he and his sister drank tea — weather permit- 
ting — on the lawn with their friends at Brin- 
tysilio ; and he alludes gracefully to these 
meetings in a letter written in the early sum- 
mer of 1888, when Lady Martin had urged 
him to return to Wales. 

The poet left another and more pathetic 
remembrance of himself in the neighborhood 
of Llangollen : his weekly presence at the after- 
noon Sunday service in the parish church of 
Llantysilio. Churchgoing was, as I have said, 
no part of his regular life. It was no part of his 
life in London. But I do not think he ever 

1 I believe a Captain Best. 



DEATH OF M. JOSEPH MILSAND, 529 

failed in it at the Universities or in the 
country. The assembling for prayer meant 
for him something deeper in both the religious 
and the human sense, where ancient learning 
and piety breathed through the consecrated 
edifice, or where only the figurative " two or 
three " were " gathered together " within it. 
A memorial tablet now marks the spot at 
which on this occasion the sweet grave face 
and the venerable head were so often seen. 
It has been placed by the direction of Lady 
Martin on the adjoining wall. 

It was in the September of this year that 
Mr. Browning heard of the death of M. 
Joseph Milsand. This name represented for 
him one of the few close friendships which 
were to remain until the end, unclouded in 
fact and in remembrance ; and although some 
weight may be given to those circumstances 
of their lives which precluded all possibility 
of friction and risk of disenchantment, I be- 
lieve their rooted sympathy, and Mr. Brown- 
ing's unfaiHng powers of appreciation would, 
in all possible cases, have maintained the bond 



530 ROBERT BROWNING. 

intact. The event was at the last sudden, but 
happily not quite unexpected. 

Many other friends had passed by this time 
out of the poet's life — those of a younger, as 
well as his own and an older generation. Miss 
Haworth died in 1883. Charles Dickens, with 
whom he had remained on the most cordial 
terms, had walked between him and his son at 
Thackeray's funeral, to receive from him, only 
seven years later, the same pious office. Lady 
Augusta Stanley, the daughter of his old 
friend. Lady Elgin, was dead, and her hus- 
band, the Dean of Westminster. So also were 
"Barry Cornwall" and John Forster, Alfred 
Domett and Thomas Carlyle, Mr. Cholmonde- 
ley and Lord Houghton ; others still, both men 
and women, whose love for him might entitle 
them to a place in his Biography, but whom I 
could at most only mention by name. 

For none of these can his feeling have been 
more constant or more disinterested than that 
w^hich bound him to Carlyle. He visited him 
at Chelsea in the last weary days of his long 
life, as often as their distance from each other 



DEFENSE OF CARLYLE. 531 

and his own enofao^ements allowed. Even the 
man's posthumous self - disclosures scarcely 
availed to destroy the affectionate reverence 
which he had always felt for him. He never 
ceased to defend him against the charge of 
unkindness to his wife, or to believe that in 
the matter of their domestic unhappiness she 
was the more responsible of the two.^ Yet 
Carlyle had never rendered him that service, 
easy as it appears, which one man of letters 
most justly values from another : that of pro- 
claiming the admiration which he privately 
expresses for his works. The fact was incom- 
prehensible to Mr. Browning — it was so for- 
eign to his own nature ; and he commented on 
it with a touch, though merely a touch, of bit- 

1 He always thought her a hard and unlovable woman, and 
I believe little liking was lost between them. He told a com- 
ical story of how he had once, unintentionally but rather stu- 
pidly, annoyed her. She had asked him, as he was standing 
by her tea-table, to put the kettle back on the fire. He took 
it out of her hands, but, preoccupied by the conversation he 
was carrying on, deposited it on the hearth-rug. It was some 
time before he could be made to see that this was wronjr ; 
and he believed Mrs, Carlyle never ceased to think that he 
had a mischievous motive for doing it. 



532 ROBERT BROWNING. 

terness, when repeating to a friend some al- 
most extravagant eulogium which in earher 
days he had received from him tete-a-tete. " If 
only," he said, " those words had been ever 
repeated in pnbhc, what good they might have 
done me ! " 

In the spring of 1886 he accepted the post 
of Foreign Correspondent to the Royal Acad- 
emy, rendered vacant by the death of Lord 
Houghtcn. He had long been on very friendly 
terms with the leading Academicians, and a 
constant gnest at the Banquet ; and his fitness 
for the office admitted of no doubt. But his 
nomination by the President and the manner 
in which it was ratified by the Council and 
general body gave him sincere pleasure. 

Early in 1887 the " Parleyings " appeared. 
Their author is still the same Robert Brown- 
ing, though here and there visibly touched by 
the hand of time. Passages of sweet or ma- 
jestic music, or of exquisite fancy, alternate 
with its long stretches of argumentative 
thought ; and the light of imagination still 
plays, however fitfully, over statements of 



"PARLEYINGS." 533 

opinion to which constant repetition has given 
a suggestion of commonplace. But the revi- 
sion of the work caused him unusual trouble. 
The subjects he had chosen strained his pow- 
ers of exposition ; and I think he often tried 
to remedy by mere verbal correction what was 
a defect in the logical arrangement of his 
ideas. They would slide into each other where 
a visible dividing line was required. The last 
stage of his life was now at hand ; and the 
vivid return of fancy to his boyhood's literary 
loves was in pathetic, perhaps not quite acci- 
dental coincidence with the fact. It will be 
well to pause at this beginning of his decline, 
and recall so far as possible the image of the 
man who lived, and worked, and loved, and 
was loved among us, during that brief old age, 
and the lengthened period of level strength 
which had preceded it. The record already 
given of his life and work supplies the outline 
of the picture ; but a few more personal details 
are required for its completion. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Constancy to Habit. — Optimism. — Belief in Providence. — 
Political Opinions. — His Friendships. — Reverence for Ge- 
nius. — Attitude towards his Public. — Attitude towards 
his Work. — Habits of Work. — His Reading. — Conversa- 
tional Powers. — Impulsiveness and Reserve. — Nervous 
Peculiarities. — His Benevolence. — His Attitude towards 
Women. 

When Mr. Browning wrote to Miss Ha- 
wortli, in the July of 1861, lie had said : " I 
shall still grow, I hope ; but my root is taken, 
and remains." He was then alluding to a spe- 
cial offshoot of feeHng and association, on the 
permanence of which it is not noAv necessary 
to dwell ; but it is certain that he continued 
growing up to a late age, and that the devel- 
opment was only limited by those general 
roots, those fixed conditions of his being, 
which had predetermined its form. This pro- 
gressive intellectual vitality is amply repre- 
sented in his works ; it also reveals itself in 



CHARACTERISTIC CONSTANCY. 535 

his letters in so far as I have been allowed to 
publish them. I only refer to it to give em- 
phasis to a contrasted or corresponding char- 
acteristic : his aversion to every thought of 
change. I have spoken of his constancy to all 
degrees of friendship and love. What he 
loved once he loved always, from the dearest 
man or woman to whom his allegiance had 
been given to the humblest piece of furniture 
which had served him. It was equally true 
that what he had done once he was wont, for 
that very reason, to continue doing. The de- 
votion to habits of feelincr extended to habits 
of life ; and although the lower constancy gen- 
erally served the purposes of the higher, it 
also sometimes clashed with them. It con- 
spired with his ready kindness of heart to 
make him subject to circumstances which at 
first appealed to him through that kindness^ 
but lay really beyond its scope. This state- 
ment, it is true, can only fully apply to the 
latter part of his life. His powers of reat3tion 
must originally have been stronger, as well as ' 
freer from the paralysis of conflicting motive 



536 ROBERT BROWNING. 

and interest. The marked shrinking from ef- 
fort in any untried direction, which was often 
another name for his stability, could scarcely 
have coexisted with the fresher and more curi- 
ous interest in men and things ; we know in- 
deed from recorded facts that it was a feeling 
of later growth ; and it visibly increased with 
the periodical nervous exhaustion of his ad- 
vancing years. I am convinced, nevertheless, 
that, when the restiveness of boyhood had 
passed away, Mr. Browning's strength was al- 
ways more passive than active ; that he habit- 
ually made the best of external conditions 
rather than tried to change them. He was a 
" fighter " only by the brain. And on this 
point, though on this only, his work is mis- 
leading. 

The acquiescent tendency arose in some de- 
gree from two equally prominent characteris- 
tics of Mr. Browning's nature : his optimism, 
and his behef in direct Providence ; and these 
again represented a condition of mind which 
' was in certain respects a quality, but must in 
others be recognized as a defect. It disposed 



CONTEMPT FOR POETIC MELANCHOLY. 537 

him too much to make a virtue of happiness. 
It tended also to the ignoring or denying o£ 
many incidental possibilities, and many stand- 
ing problems of human suffering. The first 
part of this assertion is illustrated by " The 
Two Poets of Croisic," in which Mr. Brown- 
ing declares that, other conditions being equal, 
the greater poet will have been he who led 
the happier life, who most completely — and 
we must take this in the human as well as 
religious sense — triumphed over suffering. 
The second has its proof in the contempt for 
poetic melancholy which flashes from the sup- 
posed utterance of Shakespeare in " At the 
Mermaid ; " its negative justification in the 
whole range of his work. 

Such facts may be hard to reconcile with 
others already known of Mr. Browning's na- 
ture, or already stated concerning it ; but it 
is in the depths of that nature that the so- 
lution of this, as of more than one other 
anomaly, must be sought. It is true that re- 
membered pain dwelt longer with him than 
remembered pleasure. It is true that the last 



538 ROBERT BROWNING. 

great sorrow of his life was long felt and 
cherished by him as a religion, and that it en- 
tered as such into the courage with which he 
first confronted it. It is no less true that he 
directly and increasingly cultivated happiness ; 
and that because of certain sufferings which 
had been connected with them, he would often 
have refused to live his happiest days again. 

It seems still harder to associate defective 
human sympathy with his kind heart and 
large dramatic imagination, though that very 
imagination was an important factor in the 
case. It forbade the collective and mathe- 
matical estimate of human suffering, which is 
so much in favor with modern philanthropy, 
and so untrue a measure for the individual 
life ; and he indirectly condemns it in " Fe- 
rishtah's Fancies " in the parable of " Bean 
Stripes." But his dominant individuality also 
barred the recognition of any judgment or im- 
pression, any thought or feeling, which did 
not justify itself from his own point of view. 
The barrier would melt under the influence of 
a sympathetic mood, as it would stiffen in the 



STRONGLY PERSONAL JUDGMENTS. 539 

atmosphere of disagreement. It would yield, 
as did in his case so many other things, to 
continued indirect pressure, whether from his 
love of justice, the strength of his attach- 
ments, or his power of imaginative absorption. 
But he was bound by the conditions of an 
essentially creative nature. The subjective- 
ness, if I may for once use that hackneyed 
word, had passed out of his work only to root 
itself more strongly in his life. He was self- 
centred, as the creative nature must inevitably 
be. He appeared, for this reason, more widely 
sympathetic in his works than in his life, 
though even in the former certain grounds of 
vicarious feeling remained untouched. The 
sympathy there displayed was creative and 
obeyed its own law. That which was de- 
manded from him by reality was responsive, 
and imphed submission to the law of other 
minds. 

Such intellectual egotism is unconnected 
with moral selfishness, though it often uncon- 
sciously does its work. Were it otherwise, I 
should have passed over in silence this aspect. 



540 ROBERT BROWNING. 

comprehensive though it is, of Mr. Brown- 
ing's character. He was capable of the largest 
self-sacrifice and of the smallest self-denial ; 
and would exercise either whenever love or 
duty clearly pointed the way. He would, he 
believed, cheerfully have done so at the com- 
mand, however arbitrary, of a Higher Power ; 
he often spoke of the absence of such injunc- 
tion, whether to endurance or action, as the 
great theoretical difficulty of life for those 
who, like himself, rejected or questioned the 
dogmatic teachings of Christianity. This does 
not mean that he io^nored the traditional mo- 
ralities which have so largely taken their place. 
They coincided in great measure with his own 
instincts ; and few occasions could have arisen 
in which they would not be to him a sufficient 
guide. I may add, though this is a digres- 
sion, that he never admitted the right of 
genius to defy them ; when such a right had 
once been claimed for it in his presence, he 
rejoined quickly, " That is an error ! JVohlesse 
ohligeJ^ But he had difficulty in acknow- 
ledging any abstract law which did not derive 



DESIRE FOR DIVINE GUIDANCE. 541 

from a Higher Power ; and tliis fact may have 
been at once cause and consequence of the 
special conditions of his own mind. All hu- 
man or conventional obligation appeals finally 
to the individual judgment ; and in his case 
this could easily be obscured by the always 
militant imagination, in regard to any subject 
in which his feelings were even indirectly con- 
cerned. No one saw more justly than he, 
when the object of vision was general or re- 
mote. Whatever entered his personal atmos- 
phere encountered a refracting medium in 
which objects were decomposed, and a succes- 
sion of details, each held as it were close to 
the eye, blocked out the larger view. 

We have seen, on the other hand, that he 
accepted imperfect knowledge as part of the 
discipline of experience. It detracted in no 
sense from his conviction of direct relations 
with the Creator. This was indeed the central 
fact of his theology, as the absolute individual 
existence had been the central fact of his met- 
aphysics ; and when he described the fatal 
leap in " Red Cotton Nightcap Country " as a 



642 ROBERT BROWNING. 

frantic appeal to the Higher Powers for the 
" sio^n " which the man's refcion did not af- 
ford, and his nature could not supply, a spe- 
cial dramatic sympathy was at work within 
him. The third part of the epilogue to 
" Dramatis Personse " represented his own 
creed ; though this was often accentuated in 
the sense of a more personal privilege, and a 
perhaps less poetic mystery, than the poem 
conveys. The Evangelical Christian and the 
subjective idealist philosopher were curiously 
blended in his composition. 

The transition seems violent from this old- 
world religion to any system of politics appli- 
cable to the present day. They were, never- 
theless, closely allied in Mr. Browning's mind. 
His politics were, so far as they went, the 
practical aspect of his religion. Their cardi- 
nal doctrine w^as the liberty of individual 
growth ; removal of every barrier of prejudice 
or convention by which it might still be 
checked. He had been a Radical in youth, 
and probably in early manhood ; he remained, 
in the truest sense of the word, a Liberal; 



A TRUE PATRIOT. 543 

and his position as such was defined in the 
sonnet prefixed in 1886 to Mr. Andrew Reid's 
essay, '^ Why I am a Liberal," and bearing 
the same name. Its profession of faith did 
not, however, necessarily bind him to any 
political party. It separated him from all the 
newest developments of so-called Liberalism. 
He respected the rights of property. He was 
a true patriot, hating to see his country 
plunged into aggressive wars, but tenacious of 
her position among the empires of the world. 
He was also a passionate Unionist ; although 
the question of our political relations with 
Ireland weighed less with him, as it has done 
with so many others, than those considera- 
tions of law and order, of honesty and human- 
ity, which have been trampled under foot in 
the name of Home Rule. It grieved and sur- 
prised him to find himself on this subject at 
issue with so many valued friends ; and no 
pain of Lost Leadership was ever more angry 
or more intense, than that which came to him 
through the defection of a great statesman 
whom he had honored and loved, from what 
he believed to be the right cause. 



544 ROBERT BROWNING. 

The character of Mr. Brownino-'s friend- 
ships reveals itself in great measure in even a 
simple outline of his life. His first friends of 
his own sex were almost exclusively men of 
letters, hy taste if not by profession ; the cir° 
cumstances of his entrance into society made 
this a matter of course. In later years he 
associated on cordial terms with men of very 
various interests and professions ; and only 
writers of conspicuous merit, whether in prose 
or poetry, attracted him as such. No inter- 
course was more congenial to him than that of 
the higher class of English clergymen. He 
sympathized in their beliefs even when he did 
not share them. Above all he loved their 
culture ; and the love of culture in general, 
of its old classic forms in particular, was as 
strong in him as if it had been formed by all 
the natural and conventional associations of a 
university career. He had hearty friends and 
appreciators among the dignitaries of the 
Church — successive Archbishops and Bish- 
ops, Deans of Westminster and St. Paul's. 
They all knew the value of the great free- 



REV. J. D. W. WILLIAMS. 545 

lance who fought Hke the gods of old with the 
regular army. No name, however, has been 
mentioned in the poet's family more fre- 
quently or with more afPection tlian that of 
the Rev. J. D. W. WilHams, Vicar of Bottis- 
ham in Cambridgeshire. The mutual ac- 
quaintance, which was made through Mr. 
Browning's brother-in-law, Mr. George Moul- 
ton-Barrett, was prepared by Mr. Williams's 
great love for his poems, of which he trans- 
lated many into Latin and Greek ; but I am 
convinced that Mr. Browningr's deliofht in his 
friend's classical attainments was quite as 
great as his gratification in the tribute he him- 
self derived from them. 

His love of genius was a worship : and in 
this we must include his whole life. Nor 
was it, as this feeling so often is, exclusively 
exercised upon the past. I do not suppose 
his more eminent contemporaries ever quite 
knew how generous his enthusiasm for them 
had been, how free from any undercurrent 
of envy, or impulse to avoidable criticism. 
He could not endure even just censure of 



546 ROBERT BROWNING. 

one whom he believed, or had believed^ to 
be great. I have seen him wince under 
it, though no third person was present, 
and heard him answer, " Don't ! don't ! '^ 
as if physical pain were being inflicted on 
him. In the early days he would make his 
friend, M. de Monclar, draw for him from 
memory the likenesses of famous writers 
whom he had known in Paris ; the sketches 
thus made of George Sand and Victor Hugo 
are still in the poet's family. A still more 
striking and very touching incident refers 
to one of the winters, probably the second, 
which he spent in Paris. He was one day 
walking with little Pen, when Beranger came 
in sight, and he bade the child " run up to " 
or " run past that gentleman, and put his 
hand for a moment upon him." This was a 
great man, he afterwards explained, and he 
wished his son to be able by and by to say 
that if he had not known, he had at all events 
touched him. Scientific genius ranked with 
him only second to the poetical. 

Mr. Browning's delicate professional sym- 



REVERENCE FOR GENIUS. 547 

pathies justified some sensitiveness on his own 
account ; but he was, I am convinced, as free 
from this quahty as a man with a poet-nature 
could possibly be. It may seem hazardous to 
conjecture how serious criticism would have 
aifected him. Few men so much " reviewed " 
have experienced so little. He was by turns 
derided or ignored, enthusiastically praised, 
zealously analyzed and interpreted : but the 
independent judgment which could embrace 
at once the quality of his mind and its de- 
fects is almost absent — has been so at all 
events during later years — from the volumes 
which have been written about him. I am 
convinced, nevertheless, that he would have 
accepted serious, even adverse criticism, if it 
had borne the impress of unbiased thought 
and genuine sincerity. It could not be other- 
wise with one in whom the power of rever- 
ence was so strongly marked. 

He asked but one thing of his reviewers, as 
he asked but one thing of his larger public. 
The first demand is indicated in a letter to 
Mrs. Frank Hill, of January 31, 1884. 



548 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Dear Mrs. Hill, — Could you befriend 
me ? The " Century " prints a little insigni- 
ficance of mine — an impromptu sonnet — 
but prints it correcthj. The "Pall Mall" 
pleases to extract it — and produces what I 
inclose : one line left out, and a note of ad- 
miration (!) turned into an I, and a super- 
fluous " the " stuck in — all these blunders 
with the correctly printed text before it ! So 
does the charge of unintelligibility attach it- 
self to your poor friend — who can kick 
nobody. Egbert Browning. 

The carelessness often shown in the most 
friendly quotation could hardly be absent 
from that which was intended to support a 
hostile view ; and the only injustice of which 
he ever complained was what he spoke of as 
falsely condemning him out of his own mouth. 
He used to say : " If a critic declares that any 
poem of mine is unintelligible, the reader 
may go to it and judge for himself ; but if it 
is made to appear unintelligible by a passage 
extracted from it and distorted by misprints, 



DESIRE TO BE READ ACCURATELY. 549 

I have no redress." He also failed to realize 
those conditions of thought, and still more 
of expression, which made him often on first 
reading difficult to understand ; and as the 
younger generation of his admirers often deny 
those difficulties where they exist, as emphat- 
ically as their grandfathers proclaimed them 
where they did not, public opinion gave him 
little help in the matter. 

The second (unspoken) request was in some 
sense an antithesis to the first. Mr. Brown- 
ing desired to be read accurately but not liter- 
ally. He deprecated the constant habit of 
reading him into his work ; whether in search 
of the personal meaning of a given passage or 
poem, or in the light of a foregone conclusion 
as to what that meaning must be. The latter 
process w^as that generally preferred, because 
the individual mind naturally seeks its own 
reflection in the poet's work, as it does in the 
facts of nature. It was stimulated by the 
investigations of the Browning Societies, and 
by the partial familiarity with his actual life 
which constantly supplied tempting, if un' 



550 ROBERT BROWNING. 

trustworthy clues. It grew out of the strong 
personal as well as literary interest which he 
inspired. But the tendency to listen in his 
work for a single recurrent note always struck 
him as analogous to the inspection of a pic- 
ture gallery with eyes bhnd to every color but 
one ; and the act of sympathy often involved 
in this mode of judgment was neutralized for 
him by the limitation of his genius which it 
presupposed. His general objection to being 
identified with his works is set forth in " At 
the Mermaid/' and other poems of the same 
volume, in which it takes the form of a rather 
captious protest against inferring from the 
poet any habit or quality of the man ; and 
where also, under the impulse of the dramatic 
moodj he enforces the lesson by saying more 
than he can possibly mean. His readers might 
object that his human personahty was so often 
plainly revealed in his poetic utterance 
(whether or not that of Shakespeare was), and 
so often also avowed by it, that the line which 
divided them became impossible to draw. But 
he again would have rejoined that the poet 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION. 551 

could never express himself with any large 
freedom, unless a fiction of impersonality were 
granted to him. He might also have alleged, 
he often did allege, that in his case the fiction 
would hold a great deal of truth ; since, ex- 
cept in the rarest cases, the very fact of poetic, 
above all of dramatic reproduction, detracts 
from the reality of the thought or feeling 
reproduced. It introduces the alloy of fancy 
without which the fixed outlines of even living 
experience cannot be welded into poetic form. 
He claimed, in short, that in judging of his 
work, one should allow for the action in it 
of the constructive imagination, in the exer- 
cise of which all deeper poetry consists. The 
form of literalism, which showed itself in seek- 
ing historical authority for every character 
or incident which he employed by way 
of illustration, was especially irritating to 
him. 

I may (as indeed I must) concede this 
much, without impugning either the pleasure 
or the gratitude with which he recognized the 
increasing interest in his poems, and, if some^ 



552 ROBERT BROWNING. 

times exhibited in a mistaken form, the grow- 
ing appreciation of them. 

There was another and more striking pecu- 
liarity in Mr. Browning's attitude towards his 
works : his constant conviction that the latest 
must be the best, because the outcome of the 
fullest mental experience, and of the longest 
practice in his art. He was keenly alive to 
the necessary failings of youthful literary pro- 
duction ; he also practically denied to it the 
quality which so often places it at an advan- 
tage over that, not indeed of more mature 
manhood, but at all events of advancing age. 
There was niuch in his own experience to 
blind him to the natural effects of time ; it 
had been a prolonged triumph over them. 
But the delusion, in so far as it was one, lay 
deeper than the testimony of such experience, 
and would, I think, have survived it. It was 
the essence of his belief that the mind is 
superior to physical change ; that it may be 
helped or hindered by its temporary alliance 
with the body, but will none the less outstrip 
it in their joint course ; and as intellect was 



ATTITUDE TOWARDS HIS WORKS. 553 

for him the life of poetry, so was the power of 
poetry independent of bodily progress and 
bodily decline. This conviction pervaded his 
life. He learned, though happily very late, to 
feel age an impediment ; he never accepted 
it as a disqualification. 

He finished his work very carefully. He 
had the better right to resent any garbling of 
it, that this habitually took place through his 
punctuation, which w^as always made w4th the 
fullest sense of its significance to any but the 
baldest style, and of its special importance to 
his own. I have heard him say : " People 
accuse me of not taking pains ! I take noth- 
ing hut pains ! " And there was indeed a cu- 
rious contrast between the irresponsible, often 
strangely unquestioned, impulse to which the 
substance of each poem was due, and the con- 
scientious labor which he always devoted to its 
form. The laborious habit must have gi'own 
upon him : it was natural that it should do so as 
thought gained the ascendency over emotion 
in what he had to say. Mrs. Browning told 
Mr. Val Prinsep that her husband " w^orked 



554 ROBERT BROWNING. 

at a great rate ; " and this fact probabl}^ con- 
nected itself with the difficulty he then found 
in altering the form or wording of any partic- 
ular phrase ; he wrote most frequently under 
that lyrical inspiration in which the idea and 
the form are least separable from each other. 
We know, however, that in the later editions 
of his old work he always corrected where he 
could ; and if we notice the changed lines in 
" Paracelsus " or " Sordello/' as they appear 
in the edition of 1863, or the slighter altera- 
tions indicated for the last reprint of his works, 
we are struck by the care evinced in them for 
greater smoothness of expression, as well as 
for greater accuracy and force. 

He produced less rapidly in later life,, 
though he could throw off impromptu verses, 
whether serious or comical, with the utmost 
ease. His work was then of a kind which re- 
quired more deliberation ; and other claims 
had multiplied upon his time and thoughts. 
He was glad to have accomplished twenty or 
thirty lines in a morning. After lunch-time, 
for many years, he avoided, when possible. 



HABITS OF WORK. 555 

even answering a note. But he always counted 
a day lost on wliicli he had not written some- 
thing; and in those last years on which we 
have yet to enter, he complained bitterly of 
the quantity of ephemeral correspondence 
which kept him back from his proper work. 
He once wrote, on the occasion of a short ill- 
ness which confined him to the house, " All 
my power of imagination seems gone. I 
might as well be in bed ! '^ He repeatedly 
determined to write a poem every day, and 
once succeeded for a fortnight in doing so. 
He was then in Paris, preparing " Men and 
Women." " Childe Roland" and "Women 
and Roses " were among those produced on 
this plan ; the latter having been suggested 
by some flowers sent to his wife. The lyrics 
in " Ferishtah's Fancies " were written, I be- 
lieve, on consecutive days ; and the intention 
renewed itself with his last work, though it 
cannot have been maintained. 

He was not as great a reader in later as in 
earlier years ; he had neither time nor avail- 
able strength to be so if he had wished ; and 



556 ROBERT BROWNING. 

he absorbed ahnost unconsciously every item 
which added itself to the sum of general 
knowledge. Books had indeed served for 
him their most important purpose when they 
had satisfied the first curiosities of his genius, 
and enabled it to establish its independence. 
His mind was made up on the chief subjects 
of contemporary thought, and what was novel 
or controversial in its proceeding had no at- 
traction for him. He would read anything, 
short of an English novel, to a friend whose 
eyes required this assistance ; but such plea- 
sure as he derived from the act was more often 
sympathetic than spontaneous, even when he 
had not, as he often had, selected for it a book 
which he already knew. In the course of his 
last decade he devoted himself for a short time 
to the study of Spanish and Hebrew. The 
Spanish dramatists yielded him a fund of new 
enjoyment ; and he delighted in his power of 
reading Hebrew in its most difficult printed 
forms. He also tried, but with less result, to im- 
prove his knowledge of German. His eyesight 
defied all obstacles of bad paper and ancient 



PECULIARITY OF VISION. 557 

type, and there was anxiety as well as pleasure 
to those about him in his unfailinof confidence 
in its powers. He never wore spectacles, nor 
had the least consciousness of requiring them. 
He would read an old closely printed volume 
by the waning light of a winter afternoon, 
positively refusing to use a lamp. Indeed, his 
preference of the faintest natural light to the 
best that could be artificially produced was 
perhaps the one suggestion of coming change. 
He used for all purposes a single eye ; for the 
two did not combine in their action, the right 
serving exclusively for near, the left for dis- 
tant objects. This was why in walking he 
often closed the right eye ; while it was indis- 
pensable to his comfort in reading, not only 
that the light should come from the right side, 
but that the left should be shielded from any 
luminous object, like the fire, which even at 
the distance of half the length of a room would 
strike on his field of vision and confuse the 
near sisrht. 

His literary interest became increasingly 
centred on records of the lives of men and 



558 ROBERT BROWNING. 

■women ; especially of such men and women as 
he had known ; he was generally curious to 
see the newly published biographies, though 
often disappointed by them. He would also 
read, even for his amusement, good works 
of French or Italian fiction. His alleg^iance 
to Balzac remained unshaken, though he was 
conscious of leno^thiness when he read him 
aloud. This author's deep and hence often 
poetic realism was, I believe, bound up with 
his own earliest aspirations towards dramatic 
art. His manner of readino^ aloud a storv 
which he already knew was the counterpart 
of his own method of construction. He 
would claim his listener's attention for any 
apparently unimportant fact which had a part 
to play in it ; he would say : " Listen to this 
description : it will be important. Observe 
this character : you will see a great deal more 
of him or her." We know that in his own 
work nothing was thrown away ; no note was 
struck which did not add its vibration to 
the general utterance of the poem ; and his 
habitual generosity towards a fellow-worker 



HIS CHOICE OF BOOKS. 559 

prompted liim to seek and recognize the same 
quality, even in productions where it was less 
conspicuous than in his own. The patient 
reading which he required for himself was 
justified by that which he always demanded 
for others ; and he claimed it less in his own 
case for his possible intricacies of thought 
or style, than for that compactness of living 
structure in which every detail or group of 
details was essential to the whole, and in a 
certain sense contained it. He read few 
things with so much pleasure as an occasional 
chapter in the Old Testament. 

Mr. Browning was a brilliant talker ; he 
was admittedly more a talker than a conversa- 
tionalist. But this quality had nothing in 
common with seK-assertion or love of display. 
He had too much respect for the acquire- 
ments of other men to wish to impose silence 
on those who were competent to speak ; and 
he had great pleasure in listening to a discus- 
sion on any subject in which he was interested, 
and on which he was not specially informed. 
He never willingly monopolized the conversa- 



560 ROBERT BROWNING. 

tion ; but when called upon to take a promi- 
nent part in it, either with one person or with 
several, the flow of remembered knowledge 
and revived mental experience, combined with 
the ingenuous eagerness to vindicate some 
point in dispute, would often carry him away ; 
while his hearers nearly as often allowed him 
to proceed from absence of any desire to in- 
terrupt him. This great mental fertility had 
been prepared by the wide reading and thor- 
ough assimilation of his early days ; and it 
was only at a later, and in certain respects 
less vigorous period, that its full bearing 
could be seen. His memory for passing oc- 
currences, even such as had impressed him, 
became very weak ; it was so before he had 
grown really old ; and he would urge this 
fact in deprecation of any want of kindness 
or sympathy which a given act of forgetful- 
ness might seem to involve. He had proba- 
bly always, in matters touching his own life, 
the memory of feelings more than that of 
facts, I think this has been described as a 
peculiarity of the poet-nature ; and though 



CONVERSATIONAL BRILLIANCY. 561 

this memory is probably the more tenacious 
of the two, it is no safe guide to the recovery 
of facts, still less to that of their order and 
significance. Yet up to the last weeks, even 
the last conscious days of his life, his remem- 
brance of historical incident, his aptness of 
literary illustration, never failed him. His 
dinner -table anecdotes supplied, of course, 
no measure for this spontaneous reproduc- 
tive power ; yet some weight must be given to 
the number of years during which he could 
abound in such stories, and attest their con- 
stant appropriateness by not repeating them. 

This brilliant mental quality had its draw- 
back, on which I have already touched in a 
rather different connection : the obstacle which 
it created to even serious and private conver- 
sation on any subject on which he was not 
neutral. Feeling, imagination, and the vivid- 
ness of personal points of view constantly 
thwarted the attempt at a dispassionate ex- 
change of ideas. But the balance often 
righted itself when the excitement of the dis- 
cussion was at an endj and it would even 



562 ROBERT BROWNING. 

become apparent that expressions or argu- 
ments which he had passed over unheeded, or 
as it seemed unheard, had stored themselves 
in his mind and borne fruit there. 

I think it is Mr. Sharp who has remarked 
that Mr. Browning combined impulsiveness of 
manner with much real reserve. He was ha- 
bitually reticent where his deeper feelings were 
concerned ; and the impulsiveness and the 
reticence were both equally rooted in his 
poetic and human temperament. The one 
meant the vital force of his emotions, the 
other their sensibility. In a smaller or more 
prosaic nature they must have modified each 
other. But the partial secretiveness had also 
occasionally its conscious motives, some unsel- 
fish, and some self -regarding ; and from this 
point of view it stood in marked apparent 
antagonism to the more expansive quaHty. 
He never, however, intentionally withheld 
from others such things as it concerned them 
to know. His intellectual and religious con- 
victions were open to all who seriously sought 
them ; and if, even on such points, he did not 



IMPULSIVENESS AND RESERVE. 563 

appear communicative, it was because he took 
more interest in any subject of conversation 
which did not directly centre in himself. 

Setting^ aside the delicacies which tend to 
self-concealment, and for which he had been 
always more or less conspicuous ; excepting 
also the pride which would cooperate with 
them, all his incUnations were in the direction 
of truth ; there was no quality which he so 
much loved and admired. He thought aloud 
wherever he could trust himself to do so. 
Impulse predominated in all the active mani- 
festations of his nature. The fiery child and 
the impatient boy had left their traces in 
the man ; and with them the peculiar child- 
like quahty which the man of genius never 
outgrows, and which, in its mingled wayward- 
ness and sweetness, was present in Robert 
Browning till almost his dying day. There 
was also a recurrent touch of hardness, dis- 
tinct from the comparatively ungenial mood 
of his earlier years of widowhood ; and this, 
like his reserve, seemed to conflict with his 
general character, but in reality harmonized 



664 ROBERT BROWNING. 

with it. It meant, not that feehng was sus- 
pended in him, but that it was compressed. 
It was his natural response to any opposition 
which his reasonings could not shake nor his 
will overcome, and which, rightly or not, con- 
veyed to him the sense of being misunder- 
stood. It reacted in pain for others, but it 
lay with an aching weight on his own heart, 
and was thrown off in an upheaval of the 
pent-up kindliness and affection, the ^moment 
their true springs were touched. The harden- 
ing power in his composition, though fugitive 
and comparatively seldom displayed, was in 
fact proportioned to his tenderness ; and no 
one who had not seen him in the revulsion 
from a hard mood, or the regret for it, knew 
what that tenderness could be. 

Underlying all the peculiarities of his na- 
ture, its strength and its weakness, its exuber- 
ance and its reserves, was the nervous excita- 
bility of which I have spoken in an earlier 
chapter. I have heard him say : " I am ner- 
vous to such a degree that I might fancy I 
could not enter a drawing-room, if I did not 



CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. ^^^ 

know from long experience that I can do it." 
He did not desire to conceal the fact, nor 
need others conceal it for him ; since it was 
only calculated to disarm criticism and to 
strengthen sympathy. The special vital power 
which he derived from this orofanization need 
not be reaffirmed. It carried also its inevita- 
ble disablements. Its resources were not al- 
ways under his own control ; and he frequently 
complained of the lack of presence of mind 
which would seize him on any conventional 
emergency not included in the daily social 
routine. In a real one he was never at fault. 
He never failed in a sympathetic response or 
a playful retort ; he was always provided with 
the exact counter requisite in a game of words. 
In this respect indeed he had all the powers 
of the conversationalist ; and the perfect ease 
and grace and geniality of his manner on such 
occasions arose probably far more from his 
innate human and social qualities than from 
even his familiar intercourse with the world. 
But he could not extemporize a speech. He 
could not on the spur of the moment string 



566 ROBERT BROWNING. 

together the more or less set phrases which an 
after-dinner oration demands. All his friends 
knew this, and spared him the necessity of 
refusing. He had . once a headache all day, 
because at a dinner, the night before, a false 
report had reached him that he was going to 
be asked to speak. This alone would have 
sufficed to prevent him from accepting any 
public post. He confesses the disability in a 
pretty note to Professor Knight, written in 
reference to a recent meeting of the Words- 
worth Society. 

19 Warwick Crescent, W., 

May 9, 1884. 

My dear Professor Knight, — I seem 
ungracious and ungrateful, but am neither ; 
though, now that your festival is over, I wish 
I could have overcome my scruples and appre- 
hensions. It is hard to say — when kind peo- 
ple press one to " just speak for a minute " — 
that the business, so easy to almost anybody, 
is too bewildering for one's self. 
Ever truly yours, 

Robert Browning, 



NERVOUS PECULIARITIES. 567 

A Rectorial Address need obviously not 
have been extemporized, but it would also have 
been irksome to him to prepare. He was not 
accustomed to uttering himself in prose except 
within the limits, and under the incitements, 
of private correspondence. The ceremonial 
publicity attaching to all official proceedings 
would also have inevitably been a trial to him. 
He did at one of the Wordsworth Society 
meetings speak a sentence from the chair, in 
the absence of the appointed chairman, who 
had not yet arrived ; and when he had re- 
ceived his degree from the University of 
Edinburgh he was persuaded to say a few 
words to the assembled students, in which I 
believe he thanked them for their warm wel- 
come ; but such exceptions only proved the 
rule. 

We cannot doubt that the excited stream of 
talk which sometimes flowed from him was, 
in the given conditions of mind and imagina- 
tion, due to a nervous impulse which he could 
not always restrain ; and that the effusiveness 
of manner with which he greeted alike old 



568 ROBERT BROWNING. 

friends and new arose also from a momentary 
want of self-possession. We may admit this 
the more readily that in both eases it was 
allied to real kindness of intention, above all 
in the latter, where the fear of seeming cold 
towards even a friend's friend strove increas- 
ingly with the defective memory for names 
and faces which were not quite familiar to 
him. He was also profoundly averse to the 
idea of posing as a man of superior gifts ; hav- 
ing, indeed, in regard to social intercourse, as 
little of the fastidiousness of genius as of its 
bohemianism. He therefore made it a rule, 
from the moment he took his place as a celeb- 
rity in the London world, to exert himself for 
the amusement of his fellow-guests at a dinner- 
table, whether their own mental resources were 
great or small ; and this gave rise to a fre- 
quent effort at conversation, which converted 
itself into a habit, and ended by carrying him 
away. This at least was his own conviction in 
the matter. The loud voice, which so many 
persons must have learned to think habitual 
with him, bore also traces of this half-uncon- 



INNATE KINDLINESS. 569 

scious nervous stimulation.^ It was natural to 
him in anger or excitement, but did not ex- 
press his gentler or more equable states of 
feeling ; and when he read to others on a sub- 
ject which moved him, his utterance often 
subsided into a tremulous softness which left 
it scarcely audible. 

The mental conditions under which his 
powers of sympathy were exercised imposed 
no limits on his spontaneous human kindness. 
This characteristic benevolence, or power of 
love, is not fully represented in Mr. Brown- 
ing's works ; it is certainly not prominent in 
those of the later period, during which it 
found the widest scope in his life ; but he 
has in some sense given its measure in what 
was intended as an illustration of the oppo- 
site quality. He tells us, in ^^ Fifine at the 

.1 Miss Browning reminds me that loud speaking had be- 
come natural to him through the deafness of several of his 
intimate friends : Landor, Kirkup, Barry Cornwall, and pre- 
viously his uncle Reuben, whose hearing had been impaired 
in early life by a blow from a cricket ball. This fact neces- 
sarily modifies my impression of the case, but does not quite 
destroy it. 



570 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Fair/' that while the best strength of women 
is to be found in their love, the best product 
of a man is only yielded to hate. It is the 
" indignant wine " which has been wrung 
from the grape plant by its external mutila- 
tion. He could depict it dramatically in more 
malignant forms of emotion ; but he could 
only think of it personally as the reaction of 
a nobler feeling which has been gratuitously 
outraged or repressed. 

He more directly, and still more truly, 
described himself when he said at about the 
same time, " I have never at any period of 
my life been deaf to an appeal made to me in 
the name of love." He was referring to an 
experience of many years before, in which he 
had even yielded his better judgment to such 
an appeal ; and it was love in the larger sense 
for which the concession had been claimed. 

It was impossible that so genuine a poet, 
and so real a man, should be otherwise than 
sensitive to the varied forms of feminine at- 
traction. He avowedly preferred the society 
of women to that of men ; they were, as I 



ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN. 571 

have already said, his habitual confidants, 
and, evidently, his most frequent correspond- 
ents ; and though he could have dispensed 
with woman friends as he dispensed with 
many other things — though he most often 
won them without knowing it — his frank in- 
terest in their sex, and the often caressing 
kindness of manner in which it was revealed, 
might justly be interpreted by individual 
women into a conscious appeal to their sym- 
pathy. It was therefore doubly remark- 
able that on the ground of benevolence, he 
scarcely discriminated between the claim on 
him of a woman, and that of a man ; and his 
attitude towards women was in this respect 
so distinctive as to merit some words of no- 
tice. It was large, generous, and unconven- 
tional ; but, for that very reason, it was not, 
in the received sense of the word, chivalrous. 
Chivalry proceeds on the assumption that wo- 
men not only cannot, but should not, take 
care of themselves in any active struggle with 
hfe ; Mr. Browning had no theoretical objec- 
tion to a woman's taking care of herself. He 



572 ROBERT BROWNING. 

saw no reason why, if she was hit, she should 
not hit back again, or even why, if she hit, 
she should not receive an answering blow. 
He responded swiftly to every feminine appeal 
to his kindness or his protection, whether aris- 
ing from physical weakness or any other ob- 
vious cause of helplessness or suffering ; but 
the appeal in such cases lay first to his hu- 
manity, and only in second order to his con- 
sideration of sex. He would have had a man 
flogged who beat his wife ; he would have 
had one flogged who ill-used a child — or an 
animal : he was notedly opposed to any 
sweeping principle or practice of vivisectioue 
But he never quite understood that the 
strongest women are weak, or at all events 
vulnerable, in the very fact of their sex, 
through the minor traditions and conven- 
tions with which society justly, indeed neces- 
sarily, surrounds them. Still less did he un- 
derstand those real, if impalpable, differences 
between men and women which correspond 
to the difference of position. He admitted 
the broad distinctions which have become 



JUDGMENTS OF WOMEN. 573 

proverbial, and are therefore only a rough 
measure of the truth. He could say on occa- 
sion : " You ought to he better ; you are a 
woman ; I ought to know better ; I am a 
man." But he had had too large an expe- 
rience of human nature to attach permanent 
weight to such generaHzations ; and they 
found certainly no expression in his works. 
Scarcely an instance of a conventional, or so- 
called man's woman, occurs in their whole 
range. Excepting perhaps the speaker in 
" A Woman's Last Word," Pompilia and 
Mildred are the nearest approach to it ; 
and in both of these we find qualities of im- 
agination or thought which place them out- 
side the conventional type. He instinctively 
judged women, both morally and intellectu- 
ally, by the same standards as men ; and 
when confronted by some divergence of 
thought or feeling, which meant, in the wo- 
man's case, neither quality nor defect in any 
strict sense of the word, but simply a nature 
trained to different points of view, an element 
of perplexity entered into his probable oppo- 



574 ROBERT BROWNING. 

sition. When the difference presented itself 
in a neutral aspect, it affected him like the 
casual peculiarities of a family or a group, 
or a casual disagreement between things of 
the same kind. He would say to a woman 
friend : " You women are so different from 
men ! " in the tone in which he might have 
said, " You Irish, or you Scotch, are so differ- 
ent from Englishmen ; " or again, " It is im- 
possible for a man to judge how a woman 
would act in such or such a case ; you are so 
different ; " the case being sometimes one in 
which it would be inconceivable to a normal 
woman, and therefore to the generality of 
men, that she should act in any but one way. 

The vague sense of mystery with which the 
poet's mind usually invests a being of the 
opposite sex had thus often in him its coun- 
terpart in a puzzled dramatic curiosity which 
constituted an equal ground of interest. 

This virtual admission of equality between 
the sexes combined with his Liberal princi- 
ples to dispose him favorably towards the 
movement for Female Emancipation. He 



WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE. 575 

approved of everything that had been done 
for the higher instruction of women, and 
would, not very long ago, have supported 
their admission to the Franchise. But he 
was so much displeased by the more recent 
action of some of the lady advocates of Wo- 
men's Eights that, during the last year of his 
life, after various modifications of opinion, he 
frankly pledged himself to the opposite view. 
He had even visions of writing a tragedy 
or drama in support of it. The plot was 
roughly sketched, and some dialogue com- 
posed, though I believe no trace of this re- 
mains. 

It is almost implied by all I have said, that 
he possessed in every mood the charm of per- 
fect simplicity of manner. On this point he 
resembled his father. His tastes lay also in 
the direction of great simplicity of life, though 
circumstances did not allow of his indulging 
them to the same extent. It may interest 
those who never saw him to know that he 
always dressed as well as the occasion required, 
and always with great indifference to the sub- 



576 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ject. In Florence he wore loose clothes which 
were adapted to the climate ; in London his 
coats were cut by a good tailor in whatever 
was the prevailing fashion ; the change was 
simply with him an incident of the situation. 
He had also a look of dainty cleanliness which 
was heightened by the smooth healthy tex- 
ture of the skin, and in later life by the sil- 
very whiteness of his hair. 

His best photographic Hkenesses were those 
taken by Mr. Fradelle in 1881, Mr. Cameron 
and Mr. WiUiam Grove in 1888 and 1889. 




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CHAPTER XXI. 

1887-1889. 

Marriage of Mr. Barrett Browning. — Removal to De Vere 
Gardens. — Symptoms of failing Strength. — New Poems; 
New Edition of his Works. — Letters to Mr. George Bain- 
ton, Mr. Smith, and Lady Martin. — Primiero and Venice. 
— Letters to Miss Keep. — The last Year in London. — 
Asolo. — Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, Mrs. Skirrow, and 
Mr. G. M. Smith. 

The last years of Mr. Browning's life were 
introduced by two auspicious events, in them- 
selves of very unequal importance, but each in 
its own way significant for his happiness and 
his health. One was his son's marriage on 
October 4, 1887, to Miss Fannie Coddington, 
of New York, a lady towards whom Mr. Bar- 
rett Browning had been strongly attracted 
when he was a very young man and she little 
more than a child ; the other, his own removal 
from Warwick Crescent to De Vere Gardens, 



578 ROBERT BROWNING. 

which took place in the previous June. The 
change of residence had long been with him 
only a question of opportunity. He was once 
even in treaty for a piece of ground at Ken- 
sington, and intended building a house. That 
in which he had lived for so many years had 
faults of construction and situation which the 
lapse of time rendered only more conspicuous ; 
the Reo["ent's Canal Bill had also doomed it to 
demolition ; and when an opening presented 
itself for securing one in all essentials more 
suitable, he was glad to seize it, though at the 
eleventh hour. He had mentally fixed on the 
new locality in those earlier days in which 
he still thought his son might eventually 
settle in London ; and it possessed at the 
same time many advantages for himself. It 
was warmer and more sheltered than any 
which he could have found on the north side 
of the Park ; and, in that close vicinity to 
Kensington Gardens, walking might be con- 
templated as a pleasure, instead of mere com- 
pulsory motion from place to place. It was 
only too soon apparent that the time had 



REMOVAL TO DE VERE GARDENS. 579 

passed when he could reap much benefit from 
the event ; but he became aware from the first 
moment of his installation in the new home 
that the conditions of physical life had become 
more favorable for him. He found an almost 
pathetic pleasure in completing the internal 
arrangements of the well-built, commodious 
house. It seems, on looking back, as if the 
veil had dropped before his eyes which some- 
times shrouds the keenest vision in face of an 
impending change ; and he had imagined, in 
spite of casual utterances which disclaimed the 
hope, that a new lease of life was being given 
to him. He had for several years been pre- 
paring for the more roomy dwelling which he 
would probably some day inhabit ; and hand- 
some pieces of old furniture had been stowed 
away in the house in Warwick Crescent, pend- 
ing the occasion for their use. He loved anti- 
quities of this kind, in a manner which some- 
times recalled his father's affection for old 
books; and most of these had been bought in 
Venice, where frequent visits to the noted 
curiosity-shops had been his one bond of habit 



680 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Avith his tourist countrymen in that city. They 
matched the carved oak and massive gildings 
and valuable tapestries which had carried 
something of Casa Guidi into his first London 
home. Brass lamps that had once hung in- 
side chapels in some Catholic church had 
long occupied the place of the habitual gasa- 
lier ; and to these was added in the following 
year one of silver, also brought from Venice, 
— the Jewish " Sabbath lamp." Another 
acquisition, made only a few months, if indeed 
so long, before he left London for the last 
time, was that of a set of casts representing 
the Seasons, which were to stand at intervals 
on brackets in a certain unsightly space on 
his drawing-room wall ; and he had said of 
these, which I think his son was procuring for 
him : " Only my four little heads, and then I 
shall not buy another thing for the house " — 
in a tone of childlike satisfaction at his com- 
pleted work. 

This summer he merely went to St. Moritz, 
where he and his sister were, for the greater 
part of their stay, again guests of Mrs. Bloom- 



DECLINING STRENGTH. 681 

field Moore. He was determined to give the 
London winter a fuller trial in the more prom- 
ising circumstances of his new life, and there 
was much to be done in De Vere Gardens 
after his return. His father's six thousand 
books, together with those he had himself 
accumulated, were for the first time to be 
spread out in their proper array, instead of 
crowding together in rows, behind and behind 
each other. The new bookcases, which could 
stand in the large new study, were waiting to 
receive them. He did not know until he tried 
to fulfill it how greatly the task would tax his 
strength. The library was, I believe, never 
completely arranged. 

During this winter of 1887-88 his friends 
first perceived that a change had come over 
him. They did not realize that his fife was 
drawing to a close ; it was difficult to do so 
when so much of the former elasticity re- 
mained ; when he still proclaimed himself 
" quite well " so long as he was not definitely 
suffering. But he was often suffering ; one 
terrible cold followed another. There was 



582 ROBERT BROWNING. 

general evidence that he had at last grown 
old. He, however, made no distinct change 
in his mode of life. Old habits, suspended 
by his longer imprisonments to the house, 
were resumed as soon as he was set free. He 
still dined out ; still attended the private view 
of every, or almost every, art exhibition. He 
kept up his unceasing correspondence — in 
one or two cases voluntarily added to it ; 
though he would complain day after day that 
his finofers ached from the number of hours 
through which he had held his pen. One of 
the interesting letters of this period was writ- 
ten to Mr. George Bainton, of Coventry, to 
be used, as that gentleman tells me, in the 
preparation of a lecture on the " Art of Effec- 
tive Written Composition.'^ It confirms the 
statement I have had occasion to make, that 
no extraneous influence ever permanently im- 
pressed itself on Mr. Browning's style. 

29 De Yere Gardens, W , October 6, 1887. 

Dear Sir, — I was absent from London 
when your kind letter reached this house, to 



LETTER TO MR. GEORGE SAINTON. 583 

which I removed some time ago — hence the 
delay in acknowledging your kindness, and re- 
plying, in some degree, to your request. All 
I can say, however, is this much — and very 
little — that, by the indulgence o£ my father 
and mother, I was allowed to live my own 
life and choose my own course in it ; which, 
having: been the same from the beo^innino^ to 
the end, necessitated a permission to read 
nearly all sorts of books, in a well-stocked 
and very miscellaneous library. I had no 
other direction than my parents' taste for 
whatever was highest and best in literature ; 
but I found out for myself many forgotten 
fields which proved the richest of pastures : 
and, so far as a preference of a particular 
" style " is concerned, I believe mine was just 
the same at first as at last. I cannot name 
any one author who exclusively influenced me 
in that respect — as to the fittest expression 
of thought — but thought itself had many 
impulsions from very various sources, a matter 
not to your present purpose. I repeat, this 
is very little to say, but all in my power — • 



684 ROBERT BROWNING. 

and it is heartily at your service — if not as 
of any value, at least as a proof that I grate- 
fully feel your kindness, and am, dear sir, 
Yours very truly, 

Robert Browning. 

In December, 1887, he wrote " Rosny," the 
first poem in " Asolando," and that which 
perhaps most displays his old subtle dramatic 
power ; it was followed by " Beatrice Signo- 
rini" and "Flute-Music." Of the "Bad 
Dreams," two or three were also written in 
London, I think, during that winter. The 
" Ponte dell' Angelo " was imagined during 
the next autumn in Venice. " White Witch- 
craft " had been suggested in the same sum- 
mer by a letter from a friend in the Channel 
Islands, which spoke of the number of toads 
to be seen there. In the spring of 1888 he 
began revising his works for the last, and now 
entirely uniform edition, which was issued in 
monthly volumes, and completed by the July 
of 1889. Important verbal corrections were 
made in " The Inn Album," though not, I 



REVISION OF ^'PAULINE:' 585 

think, in many of the later poems ; but that 
in which he found most room for improve- 
ment was, very naturally, " Pauline ; " and he 
wrote concerning it to Mr. Smith the follow- 
ing interesting letter : — 

29 De Vere Gardens, W., February 27, 1888. 

My dear Smith, — When I received the 
proofs of the first volume on Friday evenino-^ 
I made sure of returning them next day, so 
accurately are they printed. But on looking 
at that unlucky " Pauline," which I have not 
touched for half a century, a sudden impulse 
came over me to take the opportunity of just 
correcting the most obvious faults of expres- 
sion, versification, and construction ; letting 
the thoughts, such as they are, remain exactly 
as at first : I have only treated the imperfect 
expression of these just as I have now and 
then done for an amateur friend, if he asked 
me and I liked him enough to do so. Not a 
line is displaced, none added, none taken 
away. I have just sent it to the printer's, with 
an explanatory word ; and told him that he 



686 ROBERT BROWNING. 

will have less trouble with all the rest of the 
volumes put together than with this little por- 
tion. I expect to return all the rest to-mor- 
row or next day. 

As for the sketch — the portrait — it ad- 
mits of no very superior treatment : but, as it 
is the only one which makes me out youngish 
— I should like to know if an artist could not 
strengthen the thing by a pencil touch or two 
in a few minutes — improve the eyes, eye- 
brows, and mouth somewhat. The head, too, 
wants improvement : were Pen here he could 
manage it all in a moment. 

Ever truly yours, 

KoBERT Browning. 

Any attempt at modifying the expressed 
thoughts of his twenty-first year would have 
been, as he probably felt, a futile tampering 
with the work of another man ; his literary 
conscience would have forbidden this, if it had 
been otherwise possible. But he here proves 
by his own words what I have already as- 
serted, that the power of detail correction 



LETTER TO LADY MARTIN. 587 

either was, or had become by experience, very 
strong in him. 

The history of this summer of 1888 is 
partly given in a letter to Lady Martin. 

29 De Vere Gardens, W., 
August 12, 1888. 

Dear Lady Martin, — The date of your 
kind letter — June 18 — would affect me in- 
deed, but for the good conscience I retain de- 
spite of appearances. So uncertain have I 
been as to the course we should take — my 
sister and myself — when the time came for 
leaving town, that it seemed as if " next week " 
mio^ht be the eventful week when all doubts 
would disappear — perhaps the strange cold 
weather and interminable rain made it hard to 
venture from under one's roof even in fancy 
of being better lodged elsewhere. This very 
day week it was the old story — cold — then 
followed the suffocating eight or nine tropical 
days which forbade any more delay, and we 
leave to-morrow for a place called Primiero, 
near Feltre — where my son and his wife 



688 ROBERT BROWNING. 

assure us we may be comfortably — and coolly 

— housed, until we can accompany them to 
Venice, which we may stay at for a short time. 
You remember our troubles at Llangrollen 
about the purchase of a Venetian house . . . ? 
My son, however, nothing daunted, and acting 
under abler counsels than I was fortunate 
enough to obtain,^ has obtained a still more 
desirable acquisition, in the shape of the well- 
known Rezzonico Palace (that of Pope Cle- 
ment 13th) — and, I believe, is to be con- 
gratulated on his bargain. I cannot profess 
the same interest in this as in the earlier 
object of his ambition, but am quite satisfied 
by the evident satisfaction of the " young peo- 
ple." So — by the old law of compensation 

— while we may expect pleasant days abroad 

— our chance is gone of once again enjoying 
your company in your own lovely Vale of 
Llangollen ; had we not been pulled other- 
wise by the inducements we could not resist 

— another term of deliofhtf ul weeks — each 
tipped with a sweet starry Sunday at the little 

1 Those of Mr. Alexander Malcolm. 



ITALY AGAIN. 589 

church leadino: to the House Beautiful where 
we took our rest of an evening spent alw^ays 
memorably — this might have been our for- 
tunate lot once again ! As it is, perhaps we 
need more energetic treatment than we should 
get with you — for both of us are more op- 
pressed than ever by the exigencies of the 
lengthy season, and require still more bracing 
air than the gently lulling temperature of 
Wales. May it be doing you, and dear Sir 
Theodore, all the good you deserve — throw- 
ing in the share due to us, who must forego 
it ! With all love from us both, ever affec- 
tionately yours, 

Robert Browning. 

He did start for Italy on the following day, 
but had become so ill that he was on the 
point of postponing his departure. He suf- 
fered throughout the journey as he had never 
suffered on any journey before ; and during 
his first few days at Primiero, could only lead 
the life of an invalid. He rallied, however, 
as usual, under the potent effects of quiet, 



690 ROBERT BROWNING. 

fresh air, and sunshine ; and fully recovered 
his normal state before proceeding to Venice, 
where the continued sense of physical health 
combined with many extraneous circumstances 
to convert his proposed short stay into a long 
one. A letter from the mountains, addressed 
to a lady who had never been abroad, and to 
whom he sometimes wrote with more descrip- 
tive detail than to other friends, gives a touch- 
ing glimpse of his fresh delight in the beauties 
of nature, and his tender constant sympathy 
with the animal creation. 

Primiero, September 7, 1888. 

The weather continues exquisitely temper- 
ate, yet sunny, ever since the clearing thun- 
derstorm of which I must have told you in 
my last. It is, I am more and more confirmed 
in believing, the most beautiful place I was 
ever resident in : far more so than Gressoney, 
or even St.-Pierre de Chartreuse. You would 
indeed delight in seeing the magnificence of 
the mountains — the range on either side, 



PRIMIERO. 591 

which morning and evening, in turn, trans- 
mute literally to gold — I mean what I say. 
Their utterly bare ridges of peaks and crags 
of all shape, quite naked of verdure, glow 
like yellow ore ; and, at times, there is a silver 
change, as the sun prevails or not. 

The valley is one green luxuriance on all 
sides ; Indian corn, with beans, gourds, and 
even cabbages, filling up the interstices ; and 
the flowers, though not presenting any novelty 
to my uninstructed eyes, yet surely more large 
and purely developed than I remember to have 
seen elsewhere. For instance, the tiger-lilies 
in the garden here must be above ten feet 
high, every bloom faultless, and, what strikes 
me as peculiar, every leaf on the stalk from 
bottom to top as perfect as if no insect existed 
to spoil them by a notch or speck. . . . 

. . . Did I tell you we had a little captive 
fox — the most engaging of little vixens ? 
To my great joy she has broken her chain and 
escaped, never to be recaptured, I trust. The 
original wild and untamable nature was to be 
plainly discerned even in this early stage of 



592 ROBERT BROWNING. 

the whelp's hfe : she dug herself, with such 
baby feet, a huge hole, the use of which was 
evident, when, one day, she pounced thence 
on a stray turkey — allured within reach by 
the fragments of fox's breakfast — the in= 
truder escaping with the loss of his tail. The 
creature came back one night to explore the 
old place of captivity — ate some food and re- 
tired. For myself — I continue absolutely 
well : I do not walk much, but for more than 
amends, am in the open air all day long. 

No less striking is a short extract from a 
letter written in Venice to the same friend, 
Miss Keep. 

Ca' Alvise, October 16, 1888. 
Every morning at six, I see the sun rise ; 
far more wonderfully, to my mind, than his 
famous setting, which everybody glorifies. 
My bedroom window commands a perfect 
view : the still, gray lagune, the few seagulls 
flying, the islet of S. Giorgio in deep shadow^ 
and the clouds in a long purple rack, behind 
which a sort of spirit of rose burns up till 



LAST VISIT TO BALLIOL. 593 

presently all the rims are on fire with gold, 
and last of all the orb sends before it a long 
column of its own essence apparently : so my 
day begins. 

We feel, as we read these late, and even 
later words, that the lyric imagination was 
renewing itself in the incipient dissolution of 
other powers. It is the Browning of " Pippa 
Passes " who speaks in them. 

He suffered less on the whole during^ the 
winter of 1888-89. It was already advanced 
when he returned to England ; and the at- 
tacks of cold and asthma were either shorter 
or less frequent. He still maintained through- 
out the season his old social routine, not omit- 
ting his yearly visit, on the anniversary of 
Waterloo, to Lord Albemarle, its last surviv- 
ing veteran. He went for some days to Ox- 
ford during the commemoration week, and 
had for the first, as also last time, the plea- 
sure of Dr. Jowett's almost exclusive society 
at his beloved Balliol College. He proceeded 
with his new volume of poems. A short let- 



594 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ter written to Professor Knight, June 16, and 
of which the occasion speaks for itself, fitly 
closes the labors of his life ; for it states his 
view of the position and function of poetry, in 
one brief phrase, which might form the text 
to an exhaustive treatise upon them. 

29 De Vere Gardens, W., June 16, 1889. 

My dear Professor Knight, — - 1 am de- 
lighted to hear that there is a likelihood of 
your establishing yourself in Glasgow, and il- 
lustrating Literature as happily as you have 
expounded Philosophy at St. Andrews. It is 
certainly the right order of things : Philoso- 
phy first, and Poetry, which is its highest out- 
come, afterward — and much harm has been 
done by reversing the natural process. How 
capable you are of doing justice to the high- 
est philosophy embodied in poetry, your vari- 
ous studies on Wordsworth prove abundantly ; 
and for the sake of both Literature and Phi- 
losophy I wish you success with all my heart. 

Believe me, dear Professor Knight, yours 
very truly, Robert Browning. 



SHRINKS FROM TRAVELING. 595 

But he experienced, when the time came, 
more than his habitual disincHnation for leav- 
ino- home. A distinct shrinkino^ from the fa- 
tigue of going to Italy now added itself to it ; 
for he had suffered when traveling back in the 
previous winter almost as much as on the out- 
ward journey, though he attributed the dis- 
tress to a different cause : his nerves were, he 
thought, shaken by the wearing discomforts 
incidental on a broken tooth. He was for the 
first time painfully sensitive to the vibration 
of the train. He had told his friends, both in 
Venice and London, that so far as he was able 
to determine, he would never return to Italy. 
But it was necessary he should go somewhere, 
and he had no alternative plan. For a short 
time in this last summer he entertained the 
idea of a visit to Scotland ; it had indeed defi- 
nitely shaped itself in his mind ; but an inci- 
dent, trivial in itself, though he did not think 
it so, destroyed the first scheme, and it was 
then practically too late to form another. 
During the second week in August the 
weather broke. There could no longer be any 



596 ROBERT BROWNING. 

question of the north v/ard journey without 
even a fixed end in view. His son and daugh- 
ter had taken possession of their new home, 
the Palazzo Rezzonico, and were anxious to see 
him and Miss Browning there ; their wishes 
naturally had weight. The easting vote in 
favor of Venice was given by a letter from 
Mrs. Bronson, proposing Asolo as the inter- 
mediate stage. She had fitted up for herself 
a little summer retreat there, and promised 
that her friends should, if they joined her, be 
also comfortably installed. The journey was 
this time propitious. It was performed with- 
out imprudent haste, and Mr. Browning 
reached Asolo unfatigued and to all appear- 
ance well. 

He saw this, his first love among Italian cit- 
ies, at a season of the year more favorable to 
its beauty than even that of his first visit ; yet 
he must himself have been surprised by the 
new rapture of admiration which it created in 
him, and which seemed to grow with his 
lengthened stay. This state of mind was the 
more striking, that new symptoms of his phys- 



ASOLO ONCE MORE. 697 

ical decline were now becoming apparent, and 
were in themselves of a depressing kind. He 
wrote to a friend in England that the atmos- 
phere of Asolo, far from being oppressive, 
produced in him all the effects of mountain 
air, and he was conscious of difficulty of 
breathing whenever he walked up hill. He 
also suffered, as the season advanced, great 
inconvenience from cold. The rooms occu- 
pied by himself and his sister were both un- 
provided with fireplaces ; and though the daily 
dinner with Mrs. Bronson obviated the dis- 
comfort of the evenings, there remained still 
too many hours of the autumnal day in which 
the impossibility of heating their own little 
apartment must have made itself unpleasantly 
felt. The latter drawback would have been 
averted by the fulfillment of Mr. Browning's 
first plan, to be in Venice by the beginning 
of October, and return to the comforts of his 
own home before the winter had quite set in ; 
but one slight motive for delay succeeded 
another, till at last a more serious project in- 
troduced sufficient ground of detention. He 



698 ROBERT BROWNING. 

seemed possessed by a strange buoyancy — an 
almost feverish joy in life, which blunted all 
sensations of physical distress, or helped him 
to misinterpret them. When warned against 
the imprudence of remaining where he knew 
he suffered from cold, and believed, rightly or 
wrongly, that his asthmatic tendencies were 
increased, he would reply that he was grow- 
ing acclimatized — that he was quite well. 
And, in a fitful or superficial sense, he must 
have been so. 

His letters of that period are one continu- 
ous picture, glowing with his impressions of 
the things which they describe. The same 
words will repeat themselves as the same sub- 
ject presents itself to his pen; but the impulse 
to iteration scarcely ever affects us as mech^n- 
ical. It seems always a fresh response to 
some new stimulus to thought or feeling 
which he has received. These reach him from 
every side. It is not only the Asolo of this 
peaceful later time which has opened before 
him, but the Asolo of " Pippa Passes " and 
^' Sordello ; " that which first stamped itself 



LETTER TO MRS. FITZ-GERALD. 599 

on his imagination in the echoes of the court 
life of Queen Catharine/ and of the barbaric 
wars of the Eccelini. Some of his letters 
dwell especially on these early historical asso- 
ciations : on the strange sense of reopening 
the ancient chronicle which he had so deeply 
studied fifty years before. The very phrase- 
ology of the old Italian text, which I am cer- 
tain he had never glanced at from that distant 
time, is audible in an account of the massacre 
of San Zenone, the scene of which he has 
been visiting. To the same correspondent he 
says that his two hours' drive to Asolo 
" seemed to be a dream ; " and again, after 
describing, or, as he thinks, only trying to de- 
scribe, some beautiful feature of the place, 
" but it is indescribable ! " 

A letter addressed to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, 
October 8, 1889, is in part a fitting sequel to 
that which he had written to her from the 
same spot, eleven years before. 

..." Fortunately there is little changed 
here : my old Albergo — ruinous with earth- 

^ Catharine Cornaro, the dethroned queen of Cyprus. 



GOO ROBERT BROWNING. 

quake — is down and done with — but few 
novelties are observable — except the regretta- 
ble one that the silk industry has been trans- 
ported elsewhere — to Cornuda and other 
places nearer the main railway. No more 
Pippas — at least of the silk-winding sort ! 

"" But the pretty type is far from extinct. 

" Autumn is beginning to paint the foHage, 
but thin it as well ; and the sea of fertility all 
round our height, which a month ago showed 
pomegranates and figs and chestnuts — wal- 
nuts and apples all rioting together in full 
glory — all this is daily disappearing. I say 
nothing of the olive and the vine. I find the 
Turret rather the worse for careful weed- 
ing — the hawks which used to build there 
have been ' shot for food ' — and the echo is 
sadly curtailed of its replies ; still, things are 
the same in the main. Shall I ever see them 
again, when — as I suppose — we leave for 
Venice in a fortnight ? " . . . 

In the midst of this imag^inative delio^ht he 
carried into his walks the old keen habits of 
observation. He would peer into the hedges 



LETTER TO MRS. SKIRROW. 601 

for what living things were to be found there. 
He would whistle softly to the lizards basking 
on the low walls which border the roads, to 
try his old power of attracting them. 

On the 15th of October he wrote to Mrs. 
Skirrow, after some preliminary description : 

Then — such a view over the whole Lom- 
bard plain ; not a site in view, or ajpiwoximate 
view at least, without its story. Autumn is 
now painting all the abundance of verdure — 
figs, pomegranates, chestnuts, and vines, and I 
don't know what else — all in a wonderful 
confusion — and now glowing with all the 
colors of the rainbow. Some weeks back, the 
little town was glorified by the visit of a de- 
cent theatrical troop, who played in a theatre 
'i?2side the old palace of Queen Catharine Cor- 
naro — utilized also as a prison in which I am 
informed are at present full five if not six 
malefactors guilty of stealing grapes, and the 
like enormities. Well, the troop played for a 
fortnight together exceedingly well — high 
tragedy and low comedy — and the stage-box 



602 ROBERT BROWNING. 

which I occupied cost 16 francs. The theatre 
had been out of use for six years, for we are 
out of the way and only a baiting-place for a 
company pushing on to Venice. In fine, we 
shall stay here probably for a week or more, 
and then proceed to Pen, at the Rezzonico ; a 
month there, and then homewards ! . . . 

I delio;:ht in finding- that the beloved Hus- 
band and precious friend manages to do with- 
out the old yoke about his neck, and enjoys 
himself as never anybody had a better right 
to do. I continue to cono-ratulate him on his 
emancipation and ourselves on a more fre- 
quent enjoyment of his company in conse- 
quence.^ Give him my true love ; take mine, 
dearest friend — and my sister's love to you 
both goes with it. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Robert Browning, 

The cry of " homewards ! " now frequently 
recurs in his letters. We find it in one writ- 

^ Mr. Skirrow had just resigned his post of Master in 
Chancery. 



LETTER TO MR. G. M. SMITH. 603 

fen a week later to Mr. G. M. Smith, other- 
wise very expressive of his latest condition of 
mind and feelinof. 

o 

A SOLO, Veneto, Italia, October 22, 1889. 

My dear Smith, — I was indeed delij^hted 
to get your letter two days ago — for there 
are such accidents as the loss of a parcel, even 
when it has been dispatched from so im- 
portant a place as this city — for a regular 
city it is, you must know, with all the rights 
of one — older far than Rome, being founded 
by the Euganeans who gave their name to the 
adjoining hills. " Fortified " it was once, as- 
suredly, and the walls still surround it most 
picturesquely though mainly in utter ruin, and 
you even overrate the population, which does 
not now much exceed 900 souls — in the city 
proper, that is — for the territory below and 
around contains some 10,000. But we are at 
the very top of things, garlanded about, as it 
were, with a narrow line of houses — some 
palatial, such as you would be glad to see in 
London — and above all towers the old dwell- 



604 ROBERT BROWNING. 

irig of Queen Cornaro, who was forced to ex- 
change her Kingdom of Cyprus for this pretty 
but petty dominion where she kept state in a 
mimic court, with Bembo, afterwards Cardi- 
nal, for her secretary — w^lio has commemo 
rated the fact in his " Asolani " or dialogue.' 
inspired by the place : and I do assure you that, 
after some experience of beautiful sights in 
Italy and elsewhere, I know nothing compara- 
ble to the view from the Queen's tower and 
palace, still perfect in every respect. When- 
ever you pay Pen and his wife the visit you 
are pledged to, ^ it will go hard but you spend 
five hours in a journey to Asolo. The one 
thing I am disappointed in is to find that the 
silk-cultivation, with all the pretty girls who 
were engaged in it, is transported to Cornuda 
and other places — nearer the railway, I sup- 
pose : and to this may be attributed the de- 
crease in the number of inhabitants. The 
weather when I wrote last was " blue and 
blazing — (at noon-day) " — but w^e share in 
the general plague of rain — had a famous 
storm yesterday : while to-day is blue and 



AFFECTIONATE GREETINGS. 605 

sunny as ever. Lastly, for your admonition : 
we heme a perfect telegraphic communication ; 
and at the passage above, where I put a * I 
was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram : 
thank you all the same for your desire to re- 
lieve my anxiety. And now, to our imme- 
diate business — which is only to keep thank- 
ing you for your constant goodness, present 
and future : do with the book just as you 
will. I fancy it is bigger in bulk than usual. 
As for the " proofs " — I g'o at the end of 
the month to Venice, whither you will please 
to send whatever is necessary. ... I shall do 
well to say as little as possible of my good 
wishes for you and your family, for it comes 
to much the same thing as wishing myself 
prosperity: no matter, my sister's kindest' re- 
gards shall excuse mine, and I will only add 
that I am, as ever, 

AfPectionately yours, 
Robert Browning. 

A general quickening of affectionate im- 
pulse seemed part of this last leap in the 
socket of the dying flame. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

1889. 

Proposed Purchase of Land at Asolo. — Venice. — Letter to 
Mr. G. Moulton-Barrett. — Lines in the " Athenaeum." — 
Letter to Miss Keep. — Illness. — Death. — Funeral Cer- 
emonial at Venice. — Publication of " Asolaudo." — Inter- 
ment in Poets' Corner. 

He had said in writing to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, 
" Shall I ever see them " (the things he is de- 
scribing) " again ? " If not then, soon after- 
wards, he conceived a plan which was to insure 
his doing so. On a piece of ground belong- 
ino^ to the old castle stood the shell of a 
house. The two constituted one property, 
which the Municipality of Asolo had hitherto 
refused to sell. It had been a dream of Mr. 
Browning's life to possess a dwelling, however 
small, in some beautiful spot, which should 
place him beyond the necessity of constantly 
seeking a new summer resort, and above the 



''PIPPA'S TOWER." 607 

alternative of living at an inn, or accepting — 
as he sometimes feared, abusing — the hospi- 
tality of his friends. He was suddenly fasci- 
nated by the idea of buying this piece of 
ground ; and, with the efficient help which his 
son could render during his absence, complet- 
ing the house, which should be christened 
" Pippa's Tower." It was evident, he said in 
one of his letters, that for his few remaining 
years his summer wanderings must always end 
in Venice. What could he do better than 
secure for himself this resting-place by the 
way? 

His offer of purchase was made through 
Mrs. Bronson to Count Loredano and other 
important members of the municipality, and 
their personal assent to it secured. But the 
town council was on the eve of reelection ; no 
important business could be transacted by 
it till after this event ; and Mr. Browning 
awaited its decision till the end of October at 
Asolo, and again throughout November in 
Venice, without fully understanding the de- 
lay. The vote proved favorable; but the 



608 ROBERT BROWNING. 

niglit on which it was taken was that of his 
death. 

The consent thus given would have been 
only a first step towards the accomplishment 
of his wish. It was necessary that it should 
be ratified by the Prefecture of Treviso, in the 
district of which Asolo lies ; and Mr. Barrett 
Browning, who had determined to carry on 
the negotiations, met with subsequent opposi- 
tion in the higher council. This has now, 
however, been happily overcome. 

A comprehensive interest attaches to one 
more letter of the Asolo time. It was ad- 
dressed to Mr. Browning's brother-in-law, Mr. 
George Moulton-Barrett. 

Asolo, Veneto, October 22, 1889. 

My dear George, — It was a great plea- 
sure to get your kind letter ; though after some 
delay. We were not in the Tyrol this year, 
but have been for six weeks or more in this 
little place, which strikes me — as it did fifty 
years ago, which is something to say, consid- 
ering that, properly speaking, it was the first 



LETTER TO MR. G. MOULTON-BARRETT. 609 

spot of Italian soil I ever set foot upon — 
having proceeded to Venice by sea — and 
thence here. It is an ancient city, older than 
Rome, and the scene of Queen Catharine Cor- 
naro's exile, where she held a mock court, 
with all its attendants, on a miniature scale ; 
Bembo, afterwards Cardinal, being her secre- 
tary. Her palace is still above us all, the old 
fortifications surround the hilltop, and certain 
of the houses are stately — though the popu- 
lation is not above 1,000 souls : the province 
contains many more, of course. But the im- 
mense charm of the surrounding country is 
indescribable — I have never seen its like — 
the Alps on one side, the Asolan mountains 
all round — and opposite, the vast Lombard 
plain — with indications of Venice, Padua, 
and the other cities, visible to a good eye on 
a clear day ; while everywhere are sites of bat- 
tles and sieges of bygone days, described in 
full by the historians of the Middle Ages. 

We have a valued friend here, Mrs. Bron° 
son, who for years has been our hostess at 
Venice, and now is in possession of a house 



610 ROBElir BROWNING. 

here (built into the old city wall) — she was 
induced to choose it throuo^h what I have said 
about the beauties of the place : and through 
her care and kindness we are comfortably 
lodged close by. We think of leaving in a 
week or so for Venice — guests of Pen and his 
wife ; and after a short stay with them we shall 
return to London. Pen came to see us for a 
couple of days : I was hardly prepared for his 
surprise and admiration, which quite equaled 
my own and that of my sister. All is happily 
well with them — their palazzo excites the 
wonder of everybody, so great is Pen's clever- 
ness, and extemporized architectural know- 
ledge, as apparent in all he has done there ; 
why, why will you not go and see him there? 
He and his wife are very hospitable and re- 
ceive many visitors. Have I told you that 
there was a desecrated chapel which he has 
restored in honor of his mother — putting up 
there the inscription by Tommaseo now above 
Casa Guidi ? 

Fannie is all you say — and most dear and 
precious to us all. . . . Pen's medal, to which 



AN EXPLANATION. 611 

you refer, is awarded to him in spite of his 
written renunciation of any sort of wish to 
contend for a prize. He will now resume 
painting and sculpture — having been neces- 
sarily occupied with the superintendence of 
his workmen — a matter capitally managed, I 
am told. For the rest, both Sarianna and my- 
self are very well ; I have just sent off my 
new volume of verses for publication. The 
complete edition of the works of E. B. B. 
begins in a few days. 

The second part of this letter is very 
forcibly written, and, in a certain sense, more 
important than the first ; but I suppress it by 
the desire of Mr. Browning's sister and son, 
and in complete concurrence with their judg- 
ment in the matter. It was a systematic de- 
fense of the anger aroused in him by a lately 
published reference to his wife's death ; and 
though its reasonings were unanswerable as 
applied to the causes of his emotion, they did 
not touch the manner in which it had been 
displayed. The incident was one which de- 



612 ROBERT BROWNING. 

served only to be forgotten ; and i£ an inju- 
dicious act had not preserved its memory, no 
word of mine should recall it. Since, how- 
ever, it has been thought fit to include the 
" Lines to Edward Fitzgerald " in a widely 
circulated Bibliography of Mr. Browning's 
Works/ I owe it to him to say — what I be- 
lieve is only known to his sister and myself — 
that there was a moment in which he regretted 
those lines, and would willingly have with- 
drawn them. This was the period, unfortu- 
nately short, which intervened between his 
sending them to the " Athenaeum," and their 
appearance there. When once public opinion 
had expressed itself upon them in its too ex- 
treme forms of sympathy and condemnation, 
the pugnacity of his mind found support in 
both, and regret was silenced if not destroyed. 
In so far as his published words remained 
open to censure, I may also, without indeli- 
cacy, urge one more plea in his behalf. That 
which to the merely sympathetic observer ap- 

1 That contained in Mr. Sharpe's Life. A still more re- 
cent publication gives the lines in full. 



THE CLOSING DAYS. 613 

peared a subject for disapprobation, perhaps 
disgust, had affected him with the directness 
of a sharp physical blow. He spoke of it, and 
for hours, even days, was known to feel it, as 
such. The events of that distant past, which 
he had lived down, though never forgotten, 
had flashed upon him from the words which 
so unexpectedly met his eye, in a vividness of 
remembrance which was reality. " I felt as if 
she had died yesterday," he said some days 
later to a friend, in half deprecation, half 
denial, of the too great fierceness of his re- 
action. He only recovered his balance in 
striking the counter-blow. That he could be 
thus affected at an age usually destructive of 
the more violent emotions is part of the mys- 
tery of those closing days which had already- 
overtaken him. 

By the first of November he was in Venice 
with his son and daughter ; and during the 
three following weeks was apparently well, 
though a physician whom he met at a dinner 
party, and to whom he had half jokingly 
given his pulse to feel, had learned from it 



614 ROBERT BROWNING. 

that his days were numbered. He wrote to 
Miss Keep on the 9th of the month : — 

..." Mrs. Bronson has bought a house at 
Asolo, and beautified it indeed — niched as it 
is in an old tower of the fortifications still 
partly surrounding the city (for a city it is), 
and eighteen towers, more or less ruinous, are 
still discoverable there : it is indeed a delight- 
ful place. Meantime, to go on — we came 
here, and had a pleasant welcome from our 
hosts — who are truly magnificently lodged 
in this vast palazzo which my son has really 
shown himself fit to possess, so surprising are 
his restorations and improvements : the whole 
is all but complete, decorated — that is, re- 
newed admirably in all respects. 

" What strikes me as most noteworthy is 
the cheerfulness and comfort of the huge 
rooms. 

" The building is warmed throughout by a 
furnace and pipes. 

" Yesterday, on the Lido, the heat was 
tardly endurable : bright sunshine, blue sky 
' '— snow-tipped Alps in the distance. No 



AGGRAVATED SYMPTOMS. 615 

place; I think, ever suited my needs, bodily 
and intellectual, so well. 

" The first are satisfied — I am quite well, 
every breathing inconvenience gone : and as 
for the latter, I got through whatever had 
given me trouble in London." . . . 

But it was winter, even in Venice, and one 
day began with an actual fog. He insisted, 
notwithstanding, on taking his usual walk on 
the Lido. He caught a bronchial cold, of 
which the symptoms were aggravated not 
only by the asthmatic tendency, but by what 
proved to be exhaustion of the heart ; and 
believing as usual that his liver alone was at 
fault, he took little food, and refused wine 
altogether.^ 

He did not yield to the sense of illness ; he 
did not keep his bed. Some feverish energy 
must have supported him through this avoid- 
ance of every measure which might have 

1 He always declined food when he was unwell ; and main- 
tained that in this respect the instinct of animals was far 
more just than the idea often prevailing among human beings 
that a failing appetite should be assisted or coerced. 



61G ROBERT BROWNING. 

afforded even temporary strength or relief. 
On Friday, the 29th, he wrote to a friend in 
London that he had waited thus lonof for the 
final answer from Asolo, but would wait no 
longer. He would start for England, if pos- 
sible, on the Wednesday or Thursday of the 
following week. It was true '' he had caught 
a cold ; he felt sadly asthmatic, scarcely fit to 
travel; but he hoped for the best, and would 
write again soon." He wrote again the fol- 
lowing day, declaring himself better. He had 
been punished, he said, for long-standing 
neglect of his " provoking liver ; " but a sim- 
ple medicine, which he had often taken be- 
fore, had this time also relieved the oppression 
of his chest ; his friend was not to be uneasy 
about him ; '^ it was in his nature to get into 
scrapes of this kind, but he always managed, 
somehow or other, to extricate himself from 
them." He concluded with fresh details of 
his hopes and plans. 

In the ensuing" nis^ht the bronchial distress 
increased; and in the morning he consented 
to see his son's physician. Dr. Cini, whose in- 



LAST ILLNESS. 617 

vestigation of the case at once revealed to him 
its seriousness. The patient had been re- 
moved two days before, from the second story 
of the house, which the family then inhab- 
ited, to an entresol apartment just above the 
ground-floor, from which he could pass into 
the dining-room without fatigue. Its lower 
ceilings gave him (erroneously) an impression 
of greater warmth, and he had imagined him- 
self benefited by the change. A freer circu- 
lation of air was now considered imperative, 
and he was carried to Mrs. Browning's spa- 
cious bedroom, where an open fireplace sup- 
plied both warmth and ventilation, and large 
windows admitted all the sunshine of the 
Grand Canal. Everything was done for him 
which professional skill and loving care could 
do. Mrs. Browning, assisted by her husband, 
and by a young lady who was then her guest,^ 
filled the place of the trained nurses until 
these could arrive ; for a few days the im- 
pending calamity seemed even to have been 
averted. The bronchial attack was overcome. 

1 Miss Evelyn Barclay, now Mrs. Douglas Giles. 



618 ROBERT BROWNING. 

Mr. Browning had once walked from the bed 
to the sofa ; his sister, whose anxiety had per- 
haps been spared the full knowledge of his 
state, could send comforting reports to his 
friends at home. But the enfeebled heart had 
made its last effort. Attacks of faintness set 
in. Special signs of physical strength main- 
tained themselves until within a few hours of 
the end. On Wednesday, December 11, a 
consultation took place between Dr. Cini, 
Dr. da Vigna, and Dr. Minich ; and the opin- 
ion was then expressed for the first time that 
recovery, though still possible, was not within 
the bounds of probability. Weakness, how- 
ever, rapidly gained upon him towards the 
close of the following day. Two hours be- 
fore midnight of this Thursday, December 
12, he breathed his last. 

He had been a good patient. He took 
food and medicine whenever they were offered 
to him. Doctors and nurses became alike 
warmly interested in him. His favorite among 
the latter was, I think, the Venetian, a widoWj 
Margherita Fiori, a simple, kindly creatine 



DEATH. 619 

who had known much sorrow. To her he 
said, about five hours before the end, " I feel 
much worse. I know now that I must die." 
He had shown at intervals a perception, even 
conviction, of his danger ; but the excitement 
of the brain, caused by exhaustion on the one 
hand and the necessary stimulants on the 
other, must have precluded all systematic con- 
sciousness of approaching death. He repeat- 
edly assured his family that he was not suffer- 
ing. 

A painful and urgent question now pre- 
sented itself for solution : Where should his 
body find its last rest ? He had said to his 
sister in the foregoing summer, that he wished 
to be buried wherever he might die : if in 
England, with his mother ; if in France, with 
his father ; if in Italy, with his wife. Circum- 
stances all pointed to his removal to Florence ; 
but a recent decree had prohibited further in- 
terment in the English Cemetery there, and 
the town had no power to rescind it. When 
this was known in Venice, that city begged 
for itself the privilege of retaining the illus- 



620 ROBERT BROWNING. 

trious guestj and rendering him the last hon- 
ors. For the moment, the idea even recom- 
mended itself to Mr. Browning's son. But 
he felt bound to make a last effort in the 
direction of the burial at Florence ; and was 
about to dispatch a telegram, in which he in- 
voked the mediation of Lord Dufferin, when 
all difficulties were laid at rest by a message 
from the Dean of Westminster, conveying his 
assent to an interment in the Abbey.^ He had 
already telegraphed for information concern- 
ing the date of the funeral, with a view to the 
memorial service, which he intended to hold on 
the same day. Nor would the further honor 
have remained for even twenty-four hours 
ungranted, because unasked, but for the be- 
lief prevailing among Mr. Browning's friends 
that there w^as no room for its acceptance. 

It was still necessary to provide for the 
more immediate removal of the body. Local 
custom forbade its retention after the lapse of 
two days and nights ; and only in view of the 

^ The assent thus conveyed had assumed the form of an 
offer, and was characterized as such by the Dean himself. 



FUNERAL HONORS. 621 

special circumstances of the case could a short 
respite be granted to the family. Arrange- 
ments were therefore at once made for a pri- 
vate service, to be conducted by the British 
Chaplain in one of the great halls of the Rez- 
zonico Palace ; and by two o'clock of the 
following day, Sunday, a large number of 
visitors and residents had assembled there. 
The subsequent passage to the mortuary isl- 
and of San Michele had been organized by 
the city, and was to display so much of the 
character of a public pageant as the hurried 
preparation allowed. The chief municipal 
officers attended the service. When this had 
been performed, the coffin was carried by eight 
firemen (pompieri), arrayed in their distinc- 
tive uniform, to the massive, highly decorated 
municipal barge {Barca delle Pompefimehri), 
which waited to receive it. It was guarded 
during the transit by four uscieri in " gala " 
dress, two sergeants of the Municipal Guard, 
and two of the firemen bearing torches : the 
remainder of these following in a smaller 
boat. The barge was towed by a steam launch 



622 ROBERT BROWNING. 

of the Royal Italian Marine. The chief offi- 
cers of the city, the family and friends in 
their separate gondolas, completed the proces- 
sion. On arriving at San Michele, the lire- 
men again received their burden, and bore it 
to the chapel in which its place had been 
reserved. 

When '' Pauline " first appeared, the author 
had received, he never learned from whom, a 
sprig of laurel inclosed with this quotation 
from the poem : — 

Trust in signs and omens. 

Very beautiful garlands were now piled about 
his bier, offerings of friendship and affection. 
Conspicuous among these was the ceremonial 
structure of metallic foliage and porcelain 
flowers, inscribed Venezia a Roberto Brown- 
ing, which represented the Municipality of 
Venice. On the coffin lay one comprehensive 
symbol of the fulfilled prophecy : a wreath 
of laurel leaves which his son had placed 
there. 



EXPRESSIONS OF ITALIAN RESPECT. 623 

A final honor was decreed to the great 
English poet by the city in which he had 
died : the a£fixino^ of a memorial tablet to the 
outer wall of the Rezzonico Palace. Since 
these pages were first written, the tablet has 
been placed. It bears the following inscrip- 
tion : — 

A 
ROBERTO BROWNING 

MORTO IN QUESTO PALAZZO 

IL 12 DICEMBRE 1889 

VENEZIA 

POSE 

Below this, in the right-hand corner, appear 
two lines selected from his works : — 

Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it, " Italy." 

Nor were these the only expressions of Ital- 
ian respect and sympathy. The Municipality 
of Florence sent its message of condolence. 
Asolo, poor in all but memories, itself bore 
the expenses of a mural tablet for the house 
which Mr. Browning had occupied. It is now 



624 ROBERT BROWNING. 

known that Signor Crispi would have appealed 
to Parliament to rescind the exclusion from 
the Florentine cemetery, if the motive for 
doing so had been less promptly removed. 

Mr., Browning's own country had indeed 
opened a way for the reunion of the husband 
and wife. The idea had rapidly shaped itself 
in the pubHc mind that, since they might not 
rest side by side in Italy, they should be 
placed together among the great of their own 
land ; and it was understood that the Dean 
would sanction Mrs. Browning's interment in 
the Abbey, if a formal application to this end 
were made to him. But Mr. Barrett Browning 
could not reconcile himself to the thought of 
disturbing his mother's grave, so long conse- 
crated to Florence by her warm love and by 
its grateful remembrance ; and at the desire 
of both surviving members of the family the 
suggestion was set aside. 

Two days after his temporary funeral, pri- 
vately afid at night, all that remained of Rob- 
ert Browning was conveyed to the railway 
station ; and thence, by a trusted servant, to 



"ASOLANDO:' 625 

England. The family followed within twenty- 
four hours, having made the necessary prepa- 
rations for a long absence from Venice ; and, 
traveling with the utmost speed, arrived in 
London on the same day. The house in De 
Vere Gardens received its master once more. 

" Asolando " was published on the day of 
Mr. Browning's death. The report of his ill- 
ness had quickened public interest in the 
forthcoming work, and his son had the satis- 
faction of telling him of its already realized 
success, while he could still receive a warm, if 
momentary pleasure from the intelligence. 
The circumstances of its appearance place it 
beyond ordinary criticism; they place it be- 
yond even an impartial analysis of its con- 
tents. It includes one or two poems to which 
we would gladly assign a much earlier date ; 
I have been told on good authority that we 
may do this in regard to one of them. It is 
difiicult to refer the " Epilogue " to a coherent 
mood of any period of its author's life. It is 
certain, however, that by far the greater part 



626 ROBERT BROWNING. 

of the little volume was written in 1888-89, 
and I believe all that is most serious in it was 
the product of the later year. It possesses 
for many readers the inspiration of farewell 
words ; for all of us it has their pathos. 

He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in 
Poets' Corner, on the 31st of December, 1889. 
In this tardy act of national recognition Eng- 
land claimed her own. A densely packed, 
reverent, and sympathetic crowd of his coun- 
trymen and countrywomen assisted at the 
consignment of the dead poet to his historic 
resting place. Three verses of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's poem, " The Sleep," set to music by Dr. 
Bridge, were sung for the first time on this 
occasion. 



CONCLUSION. 

A FEW words must still be said upon that 
purport and tendency of Robert Browning's 
work which has been defined by a few per- 
sons, and felt by very many, as his " mes- 
sage." 

The definition has been disputed on the 
ground of Art. We are told by Mr. Sharp, 
though in somewhat different words, that the 
poet, qua poet, cannot deliver a " message " 
such as directly addresses itself to the intel- 
lectual or moral sense ; since his special ap- 
peal to us lies not through the substance, but 
through the form, or presentment, of what he 
has had to say ; since, therefore (by implica- 
don), in claiming for it an intellectual — as 
distinct from an aesthetic — character, we ig- 
nore its function as poetry. 

It is difficult to argue justly where the 
question at issue turns practically on the mean' 



628 ROBERT BROWNING. 

ing of a word. Mr. Sharp would, I think, be 
the first to admit this ; and it appears to me 
that, in the present case, he so formulates his 
theory as to satisfy his artistic conscience, and 
yet leave room for the recognition of that 
intellectual quality so peculiar to Mr. Brown- 
ing's verse. But what one member of the 
aesthetic school may express with a certain 
reserve is proclaimed unreservedly by many 
more ; and Mr. Sharp must forgive me if, for 
the moment, I regard him as one of these ; 
and if I oppose his arguments in the words 
of another poet and critic of poetry, whose 
claim to the double title is, I believe, undis- 
puted — Mr. E-oden Noel. I quote from an 
unpublished fragment of a published article 
on Mr. Sharp's " Life of Browning." 

" Browning's message is an integral part of 
himself as writer (whether as poet, since we 
agree that he is poet, were surely a too curious 
and vain discussion) ; but some of his finest 
things assuredly are the outcome of certain 
very definite personal convictions. ' The ques- 
tion,^ Mr. Sharp says, ' is not one of weighty 



CONCLUSION. 629 

message, hut of artistic presentation.^ There 
seems to be no true contrast here. ' The pri- 
mary concern of the artist must he with his 
vehicle of exp)ression ' — no, not the primary 
concern. Since the critic adds — (for a poet) 
' this vehicle is language emotioned to the 
white heat of rhythmic music hy impas- 
sioned thought or sensation.' Exactly — 
^ thought ' it may be. Now part of this same 
' thought ' in Browning is the message. And 
therefore it is part of his ■' primary concern.' 
^ It is ivith presentment,' says Mr. Sharp, 
' that the artist has fundam^entally to con- 
cern himself' Granted : but it must surely 
be presentment of something. ... I do not 
understand how to separate the substance 
from the form in true poetry. ... If the 
message be not well delivered, it does not 
constitute literature. But if it be well deliv- 
ered, the primary concern of the poet lay with 
the message after all ! " 

More cogent objection has been taken to 
the character of the " message " as judged 
from a philosophic point of view. It is the 



630 ROBERT BROWNING. 

expression or exposition of a vivid a priori 
religious faith confirmed by positive experi- 
ence ; and it reflects as such a double order 
of thought, in which totally opposite mental 
activities are often forced into cooperation 
with each other. Mr. Sharp says, this time 
quoting from Mr. Mortimer (" Scottish Art 
Eeview," December, 1889) : — 

" His position in regard to the thought of 
the age is paradoxical, if not inconsistent. He 
is in advance of it in every respect but one, 
the most important of all, the matter of fun- 
damental principles ; in these he is behind it. 
His processes of thought are often scientific 
in their precision of analysis ; the sudden con- 
clusion which he imposes upon them is tran- 
scendental and inept." 

This statement is relatively true. Mr. 
Browning's positive reasonings often do end 
with transcendental conclusions. They also 
start from transcendental premises. However 
closely his mind might follow the visible order 
of experience, he never lost what was for him 
the consciousness of a Supreme Eternal Will 



CONCLUSION. 631 

as having existed before it ; he never lost the 
vision of an intelligent First Cause as under- 
lying all minor systems of causation. But 
such weaknesses as were involved in his log- 
ical position are inherent to all the higher 
forms of natural theology when once it has 
been erected into a dog-ma. As maintained 
by Mr. Browning, this belief held a saving 
clause, which removed it from all dogmatic, 
hence all admissible grounds of controversy ; 
the more definite or concrete conceptions of 
which it consists possessed no finality for even 
his own mind ; they represented for him an 
absolute truth in contingent relations to it. 
No one felt more strongly than he the contra- 
dictions involved in any conceivable system of 
Divine creation and government. No one 
Knew better that every act and motive which 
we attribute to a Supreme Being is a virtual 
negation of his existence. He believed, never- 
theless, that such a Being exists ; and he ac- 
cepted his reflection in the mirror of the hu- 
man consciousness as a necessarily false image, 
but one which bears witness to the truth. 



632 ROBERT BROWNING. 

His works rarely indicate this condition of 
feeling ; it was not often apparent in his con- 
versation. The faith which he had contin- 
gently accepted became absolute for him from 
all practical points of view ; it became subject 
to all the conditions of his humanity. On 
the ground of abstract logic he was always 
ready to disavow it ; the transcendental imag- 
ination and the acknowledged limits of human 
reason claimed the last word in its behalf. 
This philosophy of religion is distinctly sug- 
gested in the fifth parable of " Ferishtah's 
Fancies." 

But even in defending what remains, from 
the most widely accepted point of view, the 
validity of Mr. Browning's " message," we 
concede the fact that it is most powerful 
when conveyed in its least explicit form ; for 
then alone does it bear, with the full weight 
of his poetic utterance, on the minds to 
which it is addressed. His challenge to 
Faith and Hope imposes itself far less 
through any intellectual plea which he can 
advance in its support, than through the un- 



CONCLUSION. 633 

conscious testimony of all creative genius to 
the marvel of conscious life ; through the 
passionate affirmation of his poetic and hu- 
man nature, not only of the goodness and 
the beauty of that life, but of its reality and 
its persistence. 

We are told by Mr. Sharp that a new star 
appeared in Orion on the night on which 
Robert Browning died. The alleged fact is 
disproved by the statement of the Astrono- 
mer Royal, to whom it has been submitted • 
but it would have been a beautiful symbol o£ 
translation, such as affectionate fancy might 
gladly cherish if it were true. It is indeed 
true that on that 12th of December a vivid 
centre of light and warmth was extinguished 
upon our earth. The clouded brightness of 
many lives bears witness to the poet spirit 
which has departed, the glowing human pres- 
ence which has passed away. We mourn the 
poet whom we have lost far less than we re- 
gret the man : for he had done his appointed 
work ; and that work remains to us. But the 
two beings were in truth inseparable. The 



634 ROBERT BROWNING. 

man is always present in the poet ; the poet 
was dominant in the man. This fact can 
never be absent from our loving remembrance 
of him. No just estimate of his life and 
character will fail to give it weight. 



INDEX. 



Abel, Mr. (musician), 61. 

Adams, Mrs. ISarah Flower, 47, 
51. 

Albemarle, Lord, 593. 

Alford, Lady Marian, 439. 

Allinghara, Mr. William, 277. 

American appreciation of 
Browning-, 339, 340. 

Ampere, M., 290. 

Ancona, 231. 

Anderson, Mr. (actor), 179. 

Arnold; Matthew, 450. 

Arnould, Mr. (afterwards Sir 
Joseph), 67, GS. 

Ashburton, Lady, 416. 

Asolo, 146, 470, 596, 606. 

Associated Societies of Edin- 
burgh, the, 517 n. 

Athenjeum, the (review of Paul- 
ine), 89, 406. 

Audierne (Finisterre, Brittany), 
405. 

Azeglio, Massimo d', 348. 

Balzac's works, the Brown- 
ings' admiration of, 219. 

Barrett, Miss Arabel, 209, 294, 
374 ; her death, 403. 

Barrett, Miss Henrietta (after- 
wards Mrs. Surtees Cook 
[Altham] ), 209 ; her death, 
351. 

Barrett, Mr. (the poet's father- 
in-law), 206-208, 211, 246 ; 
his death, 302. 

Barrett, Mr. Lawrence (actor), 
169. 



Bartoli's De Simboli trasportati 
al Morale, 145. 

Benekhausen. Mr. (Russian con- 
sul-general), 91. 

Benzon. Mr. Ernest, 426. 

B^rang-er, M. . 251, 546. 

Berdoe, Dr. Edward : his paper 
on Paracelsus, the Reformer 
of Medicine, 104. 

Biarritz, 377. 

Blackwood's Mag-azine (on A 
Blot in the 'Scutcheon), 182. 

Blagden, Miss Isa, 311, 332, 
357, 361 ; her death, 427. 

Blundell, Dr. (physician), 117. 

Boyle, Dean (Salisbury), 505. 

Boyle, Miss (niece of the Earl 
of Cork), 222, 225. 

Bridell-Fox, Mrs., 47, 81, 110. 

Bronson, Mrs. Arthur, 478, 484, 
596, 610, 614. 

Browning, Robert (grandfather 
of the poet) : account of his 
life, two marriages, and two 
families, 4-12. 

Browning-, Mrs. (step - g-rand- 
mother of the poet), 6, 113. 

Browning, Robert (father of the 
poet) : marriage, 8 ; clerk in 
the Bank of England, 8, 13 ; 
comparison between him and 
his son, 15 ; scholarly and 
artistic tastes, 15-17 ; sim- 
plicity and genuineness of his 
character, 18 ; his strong 
health, 20; Mr. Locker- 
Lampson's account of him. 



636 



INDEX. 



22-24 ; his relig-ious opinions, 
25 ; renewed relations with 
his father's widow and second 
family, 113 ; death, 398. 

Browning-, Mrs. (the poet's 
mother) : her family, 25, 26 ; 
her nervous temperament 
transmitted to her son, 27 ; 
her death, 233. 

Browning, Mr. Reuben (the 
poet's uncle), 113, 114; Lord 
Beaconsfield's appreciation of 
his Latinity, 115. 

Browning, Mr. William Sher- 
g-old (the poet's uncle), (his 
literary Avork), 115, ll(j. 

Browning, Miss Jemima (the 
poet's aunt), 113. 

Browning, Miss (the poet's sis- 
ter), 25, 43, 44, 49, 143, 215, 
294, 301, 346, 349, 352 ; comes 
to live with her brother, 400, 
405, 426, 445, 526. 

Browning, Robert, 1812-33 — 
the notion of his Jewish ex- 
traction disproved, 1 ; his 
family anciently established 
in Dorsetshire, 2 ; his care- 
lessness as to genealogical 
record, 4 ; account of his 
grandfather's life and second 
marriage, 4-6 ; his father's 
unhappy youth, 7 ; his patei*- 
nal grandmother, 8 ; his 
father's position, 13 ; com- 
parison of father and son, 15 ; 
the father's use of grotesque 
rhjTnes in teaching him, 16 ; 
qualities he inherited from 
his mother, 26 ; weak points 
in regard to health through- 
out his life, 27 ; characteris- 
tics in early childhood, 32 ; 
great quickness in learning, 
35 ; an amusing prank, 36 n. ; 
passion for his mother, 37 ; 
fondness for animals, 38 ; his 
collections, 40 ; experiences 
of school life, 41 ; extensive 
reading in his father's libra- 



ry, 44 ; early acquaintance 
with old books, 45 ; his early 
attempts in verse, 47 ; spuri.. 
ous poems in circulation, 49 ; 
Incondita, the production of 
the twelve-year-old poet, 50; 
introduction to Mr. Fox, 51 ; 
his boyish love and lasting 
affection for Miss Flower, 52 ; 
first acquaintance with Shel- 
ley's and Keats's works, 55- 
58 ; his admiration for Shel- 
ley, 58 ; home education un- 
der masters, his manly ac- 
complishments, 61 ; his stud- 
ies chiefly literary, 62 ; love 
of home, Q'^ ; associates of 
his youth : A mould and Do- 
mett, 67, 68 ; the Silver- 
thornes, 69 ; his choice of po- 
etry as a profession, 69, 70 ; 
other possible professions con- 
sidered, 70-72 ; admiration 
for good acting, 73 ; his fa- 
ther's support in his literary 
career, 74 ; reads and digests 
Johnson's Dictionary by way 
of preparation, 75. 

Browning, Robert : 1833-35 — 
publication of Pauline, 77 ; 
correspondence with Mr. Fox, 
77-81 ; the poet's later opin- 
ion of it, 82 ; characteristics 
of the poem, 83 ; Mr. Fox's 
review of it, 84, 85 ; other 
notices, 89 ; Browning's visit 
to Russia, 91 ; contributions 
to the Monthly Repository: 
his first sonnet, 92 : the Tri- 
fler (amateur periodical), 93, 
94 ; a comic defense of debt, 
94, 95 ; preparing to publish 
Paracelsus, 96-100 ; friend- 
ship with Count de Ripert- 
Monelai", 101 ; Browning's 
treatment of Paracelsus, 104- 
106 ; the original preface, 
108 ; John Forster's article on 
it in the Examiner, 110. 

Browning, Robert : 1835- 38 — 



INDEX. 



G37 



removal of the family to 
Hatcham, 111; renewed inti- 
macy with his grandfather's 
second family, 118; friendly 
relations with Carlyle, 117; 
recog'nition by men of the 
day, 1 li^ ; introduction to Mac- 
ready, 120 ; first meeting- Avith 
Forster ; Miss Euphrasia Fan- 
ny Haworth, 122; at the Ion 
supper, 124 ; prospects of 
Straffoid, 129 ; its production 
and reception, 129, loO; a 
personal description of him 
at this period, lol, 182; Mr. 
John Robertson and the West- 
minster Review, 185. 

Browning, Robert : 1838-44 — 
first Italian journey, 137 ; a 
striking experience of the voy- 
age, 139-148; preparations for 
writing other tragedies. 148; 
meeting with Mr. John Ken- 
yon, 1 30 ; appearance of bor- 
dello, 151 ; mental develop- 
ments ; Pippa Passes, 157 ; 
Alfred Domett on the crit- 
ics, 159; Bells and Pome- 
granates, 1()0 ; explanation of 
its title, 162 ; list of the po- 
ems, 164 ; A Blot in the 
'Scutcheon written for Mac- 
ready, li)8 ; Browning's later 
account and discussion of the 
breach between him and Mac- 
ready, 169 ; Colombe's Birth- 
day, 184; other dramas, 186; 
The Dramatic Lyrics, 187 ; 
The Lost Leader, 190 ; Brown- 
ing's life before his second 
Italian journey, 192 ; in Na- 
ples, 19(5 ; visit to Mr. Tre- 
lawney at Lefi;-horn, 197- 

Browning, Robert : 1844-55 — 
introduction to Miss Barrett, 
202 ; his admiration for her 
poetry, 2! 2 ; liis proposal to 
her, 203 ; reasons for conceal- 
ing the engagement, 205 ; 
their marriage, 207 ; journey 



to Italv, 214; life at Pisa, 
217; Florence, 220; Brown- 
ing's request for appointment 
on a British mission to the 
Vatican, 223 ; settling in Ca- 
sa Gaidi, 228 ; Fano and An- 
cona, 230, 231 ; A Blot in the 
'iScutelieon at Sadler's Wells, 
231 ; birth of Browning's son, 
and death of his mother, 283 ; 
wanderings in Italy : the 
Batlis of Liieca, 238 ; Venice, 
24: ) ; friendship with Marga- 
ret Fuller Ossoli, 245 ; win- 
ter in Paris, 247 ; Carlyle, 
250; George 8and, 258-259. 
Close friendship with M, Jo- 
seph Milsand, 2(50 ; Mil sand's 
appreciation of Browning, 
264 ; new edition of Brown- 
ing's poems, 2(5(5 ; Christmas 
Eve and Easter Day, 267 ; the 
Essay on Shelley, 268-275; 
summer in London, 275 ; in- 
troduction to Dante G. Ros- 
setti, 277 ; again in Florence, 
278 ; production of Colombe's 
Birthday (1853), 279; again 
at Lucca, Mr. and Mrs. W. 
Story, 282 ; first winter in 
Rome, 284 ; the Kembles, 
288 ; again in London (1855) : 
Tennyson, Ruskin, 294. 
Browning. Robert : 1855-61 — 
publication of Men and Wo- 
men, 2'.)6 ; Karshoolt, 296 ; 
Two in the Campagna, 297 ; 
another winter in Paris : Lady 
Elgin, 800 ; legacies to the 
Brownings from Mr. Kenvon, 
308 ; Mr. Browning's little 
son, 808; a carnival masquer- 
ade, 309; Spiritualism, 812; 
Sludge the Medium, 318 ; 
Coiint Ginnasi's clairvoyance, 
319 ; at Siena ; Walter Sav- 
age Landor, 326 ; illness of 
Mrs. Browning, 328 ; Ameri- 
can appreciation of Brown- 
ing's works, 339, 340; his sc 



G38 



INDEX. 



cial life in Rome, 341 ; last 
winter in Rome, 350 ; Ma- 
dame du Quaire, 354 ; Mrs. 
Browning's illness and death, 
355; the comet of 1861,350. 

Browning-, Robert : 1861-150 — 
Miss Blagden's helpful sym- 
pathy, 3(32 ; journey to Eng- 
land, 365 ; feeling in regard 
to funeral ceremonies, 36(5 ; 
established in Loudon with 
his son, 3(58 ; Miss Arabel 
Barrett, 374 ; visit to Biar- 
ritz, 377 ; origin of The Ring 
and the Book, 378 ; his views 
as to the publication of letters, 
381 ; new edition of his works, 
selection of poems, 384 ; Res- 
idence at Pornic, 385 ; a meet- 
ing at Mr. F. Palgrave's, 388 ; 
his literary position in 1865, 
390 ; his own estimate of it, 
392 ; death of his father. 398 ; 
with his sister at Le Croisic, 
400 ; Academic honors : let- 
ter to the Master of Balliol 
(Dr. Scott), 402 ; curious cir- 
cumstance connected with the 
death of Miss A. Barrett, 403; 
at Audierne, 404 ; the uni- 
form edition of his works, 406; 
publication of The Ring and 
the Book, 406 ; inspiration of 
Pompilia. 409. 

Browning, Robert : 1869-73 — 
Helen's Tower, 415 ; at St. 
Aubin, 419; escape from 
France during the war (1870), 
421 ; publication of Balaus- 
tion's Adventure and Prince 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 422 ; 
Herv^ Riel sold for the bene- 
fit of French sufferers by the 
war, 422 ; Fifine at the Fair, 
428 ; mistaken theories of 
that work, 431 ; Red Cotton 
Nightcap Country, 435. 

Browning, Robert, 1873-78 — 
his manner of life in London, 
437 ; his love of music, 440 ; 



friendship with Miss Egerton- 
Smith, 440 ; summers spent 
at Mers.Villers, Isle of Arran, 
and La Saisiaz, 445 ; Aristo- 
phanes' Apology. 445 ; Pac- 
chiarotto, The Inn Album, 
the translation of the Aga- 
memnon, 448 ; description of 
a visit to Oxford, 449 ; visit 
to Cambridge, 452 ; offered 
the Rectorships of the Uni- 
versities of Glasgow and St. 
Andrews, 454 ; description of 
La Saisiaz. 457 ; sudden death 
of Miss Egerton-Smith, 461 ; 
the poem La Saisiaz : Brown- 
ing's position towards Chris- 
tianity, 462 ; The Two Poets 
of Croisic, and Selections from 
his Works, 465. 

Browning, Robert : 1878-81 — 
he revisits Italy, 4(38 ; Splii- 
gen, 469 ; Asolo, 470 ; Ven- 
ice, 470 ; favorite Alpine re- 
treats. 476 ; friendly relations 
with Mrs. Arthixr Bronson, 
478 ; life in Venice, 479 ; a 
tragedy at Saint-Pierre, 486 ; 
the first series of Dramatic 
Idyls, 492 ; the second series, 
Jocoseria, and Ferishtah's 
Fancies, 497. 

Browning, Robert: 1881-87 — 
the Browning Society, 498 ; 
Browning's attitude in regard 
to it, 499 ; similar societies 
in England and America, 508 ; 
wide diffusion of Browning's 
works in America, 509 ; lines 
for the gravestone of Mr. Levi 
Thaxter, 512 ; President of 
the New Shakspere Society, 
and member of the Words- 
worth Society, 513 ; Honorary 
President of the Associated 
Societies of Edinburgh, 516 ; 
appreciation of his works in 
Italy, 518 ; sonnet to Goldoni, 
520 ; attempt to purchase tlie 
Palazzo Manzoni, Venice, 521 j 



INDEX. 



639 



Saint - Moritz ; Mrs. Bloom- 
field Moore, 526 ; at Llangol- 
len, 527 ; loss of old friends, 
530 ; Foreig'n Correspondent 
to the Royal Academy, 532 ; 
publication of Parleying^, 
532. 

Browning-, Robert : his charac- 
ter — constancy in friendship, 
535 ; optimism and belief in 
a direct Providence, 536 ; po- 
litical principles, 542 ; charac- 
ter of his friendships, 544 ; 
attitude towards his review- 
ers and his readers, 547 ; at- 
titude towards his works, 551 ; 
his method of work, 553 ; 
study of Spanish, Hebrew, 
and German, 556 ; conversa- 
tional powers and the stores 
of his memory, 559 ; nervous 
peculiarities, 564 ; his innate 
kindliness, 569 ; attitude to- 
wards women, 571 ; final 
views on the Women's Suf- 
frage question, 575. 

Browning-, Robert : his last 
years — marriag-e of his son, 
577 ; his change of abode, 
578 ; symptoms of declining 
strength, 57i) ; new poems, 
and revision of the old, 584 ; 
journey to Italy : Primiero 
and Venice, 589 ; last winter 
in England : visit to Balliol 
College, 593 ; last visit to 
Italy : Asolo once more, 596 ; 
proposed purchase of land 
there, 606 ; the Lines to Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald, 612 ; with 
his son at Palazzo Rezzonico, 
613 ; last illness, 616 ; death, 
618 ; funeral honors in Italy, 
621,622; Asolando published 
on the day of his death, 625 ; 
his burial in Westminster 
Abbey, 626 ; the purport and 
tendency of his work, 627- 
634. 

Browning, Robert : letters to — 



Bainton, Mr. George (Cov- 
entry), 582. 

Blagden, Miss Isa, 365, 875, 
377, 380, 386, 390, 396, 
403, 407, 419, 421, 424, 
428. 

Fitz-Gerald, Mrs., 449, 453, 
457, 470, 482, 489, 503, 
599. 

Flower, Miss, 158, 195. 

Fox, Mr., 77-81, 97, 98, 
128, 321. 

Haworth, Miss E. F., 137, 
192,361. 

Hickey, MissE. H., 512. 

Hill, Mr. Frank (editor of 
the Daily News), 170, 
178. 

Hill, Mrs. Frank, 548. 

Keep, Miss, 590, 592, 614. 

Knight, Professor (St. An- 
drews), 151, 514, 516, 
566, 594. 

Lee, Miss (Maidstone), 191. 

Leighton, Mr. (afterwards 
Sir Frederic), 328, 359, 
385, 413. 

Martin, Mrs. Theodore (af- 
terwards Lady), 279, 
587. 

Moulton-Barrett, Mr. G , 
367, 608. 

Quaire, Madame du, 372. 

Robertson, Mr. John (ed- 
itor of Westminster Re- 
view, 1838), 135. 

Scott, Rev. Dr., 402. 
• Skirrow, Mrs. Charles, 492, 
522, 527, 601. 

Smith, Mr. G. M., 422, 585, 
603. 
Browning, Robert : Works of — 

A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 
168-183, 186. 

A Daath in the Desert, 462, 
494. 

Agamemnon, 447. 

Andrea del Sarto, 494. 

Aristophanes' Apology, 
445. 



640 



INDEX. 



Artemis Prolo^zes, 188. 
Asolando, 118, 190, 479, 

584, 625. 
At the Mermaid, 537, 550. 
A Woman's Last Word, 

573. 
Bad Dreams, 584. 
Balaustion's Adventvire, 

422, 426, 429. 
Bean Stripes, 538. 
Beatrice oignorini, 584. 
Bells and Pomegranates, 

74, 93, 119, 159 ; mean- 
ing- of the title, and list of 

the dramas and poems, 

164, 200, 266. 
Ben Karshook's Wisdom, 

296. 
Bishop Blougram, 494. 
By the Fireside, 284. 
Childe Roland, 555. 
Christmas Eve and Easter 

Day, 267, 268, 462. 
Cleon, 494. 
Colombe's Birthday, 119, 

184, 279, 384. 
Crescentius, the Pope's Le- 
gate, 190. 
Cristina, 189. ' 
Dramatic Idyls, 469, 492, 

495, 496. 
Dramatic Lyrics, 187-190. 
Dramatis Personae, 380, 

395, 408, 429, 462. 
Essay on Shelley, 268-275. 
Ferishtah's Fancies, 497, 

632. 
Fifine at the Fair, 428-434, 

494. 
Flute-Music, 584. 
Goldoni, sonnet to, 521. 
Helen's Tower (sonnet), 

415. 
Herv^ Kiel (ballad), 188, 

422. 
Home Thoughts from the 

Sea, 145. 
How they brought the Good 

News from Ghent to Aix, 

144. 



In a Balcony, 284, 380. 
In a Gondola, 146, 188. 
Ivkn Iv^novitch, 411, 474, 

496. 
James Lee's Wife, 93, 387, 

494. 
Jocoseria, 497. 
Johannes Agricola in Medi- 
tation, 93. 
King Victor and King 

Charles, 149, 161, 186. 
La Saisiaz, 441, 461-465, 

493. 
Luria, 390. 
Madhouse Cells, 93. 
Martin Relph, 496. 
May and Death, 69. 
Men and Women, 284, 295, 

555. 
Ned Bratts, 496. 
Numpholeptos, 495. 
One Word More, 296, 298. 
Pacchiarotto, 422, 433, 448. 
Paracelsus, 74, 90, 96, 101- 

110, 118, 147, 223, 266. 
Parleyings, 263, 532. 
Pauline, 53, 58-60, 63, 69, 

76, 82, 107, 152, 585. 
Pippa Passes, 57, 146, 157, 

159 ; the preface to, 162. 
Ponte deir Angelo, 584. 
Porphyria' s Lover, 93. 
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan- 

gau, 422, 426, 494. ^ 
Red Cotton Nightcap Coun- 
try, 435, 495, 541. 
Rosny, 584. 
Saint Martin's Summer, 

495. 
Saul, 494. 
Sludge the Medium, 413, 

494. 
Sordello, 74, 123, 134, 148, 

151-157, 160, 263, 384. 
Strafford, 125-131, 133, 

148, 186. 
The Epistle of Karshish^ 

494. 
The Flight of the Duchess, 

118. 



INDEX. 



641 



The Inn Album, 448, 495, 

584. 

The Lost Leader, 100. 

The Pied Piper of Hame- 
lin, 189. 

The Return of the Druses, 
149, 1(51, 180. 

The Ring and the Book, 
378, 406-408, 429. 

The Two Poets of Croisic, 
465, 537. 

The Worst of It, 494. 

Two in the Campagna, 
297-299. 

"VVliite Witchcraft, 584. 

Whv I am a Liberal (son- 
net), 521, 543. 

Women and Roses, 554. 
Browning, Mrs. (the poet's 
wife : Elizabeth Barrett 
Moulton - Barrett) : Brown- 
ing's introduction to her, 201 ; 
her ill health, 204 ; the rea- 
sons for their secret marriage, 
205 ; causes of her ill health, 
212 ; happiness of her mar- 
ried life, 213 ; estrangement 
from her father, 246 ; her visit 
to Mrs. Theodore Martin, 
281 ; Aurora Leigh : her 
methods of work, 301 ; a leg- 
acy from Mr. Kenyon, 303 ; 
her feeling about Spiritual- 
ism, 313 ; succ?ss of Aurora 
Leigh, 33() ; her sister's ill- 
ness and death, 351 ; her own 
death, 356 ; proposed reinter- 
ment in Westminster Abbey, 
624. 
Browning, Mrs. : extracts from 
her letters — on her husband's 
devotion, 216 ; life in Pisa, 
217 ; on French literature, 
219 ; Vallombrosa, 220 ; their 
acquaintances in Florence, 
222 ; their dwelling in Piazza 
Pitti, 224 ; " Father Front's " 
cure for a sore throat, 226 ; 
apartments in tlie Casa Guidi, 
227 ; visits to Fauo and An- 



cona, 230*; Phelps's produc- 
tion of the Blot in the 'Scutch- 
eon, 231 ; birth of her son, 
233 ; the effect of his moth- 
er's death on her husband, 
234 ; wanderings in northern 
Italy, 23(5 ; the neighborhood 
of Lucca, 241, 282, 283 ; Ven- 
ice, 244 ; life in Paris (1851), 
247 ; esteem for her husband's 
family,, 249 ; description of 
George Sand, 259; the per- 
sonal appearance of that lady, 
255 ; her impression of M. 
Joseph Milsand, 263 ; the 
first performance of Colombe's 
Birthday (1853), 280 ; Rome : 
death in the Story family, 
285 ; Mrs. Sartoris and the 
Kembles, 288 ; society in 
Rome, 290 ; a visit to Mr. 
Ruskin, 294 ; about " Peni- 
ni," 308 ; description of a car- 
nival masquerade (Florence, 
1857), 309; impressions of 
Landor, 333 ; tribute to the 
unselfish character of her fa- 
ther-in law, 337 ; on her hus- 
band's work, 338 ; on the con- 
trast of his (then) appreciation 
in England and America, 339, 
340 ; Massimo d' Azeglio, 
348 ; on her sister Henrietta 
(Mrs. Surtees Cook), 350; on 
the death of Count Cavour, 
356. 
Browning, Mr. Robert Wiede- 
mann Barrett (the poet's son): 
his birth, 233 ; incidents of 
his childhood, 249, 285, 303- 
307 ; his pet-name — Penini, 
Peni, Pen, 304 ; in charge of 
Miss Isa Blagden on his moth- 
er's death, 358 ; taken to Eng- 
land by his father, 365 ; man- 
ner of his education, 371, 
386 ; studying art in Ant- 
werp, 445 ; with his father in 
Venice (1885), 521 ; his mar- 
riage, 577 ; purchase of the 



64t. 



INDEX. 



Rezzonico Palace (Venice), 
588 ; death of his father there, 
618.^ 

Browning, Mrs. R. Barrett, 610, 
617. 

Browning, Mr. Robert Jardine 
(Crown Prosecutor in New 
South Wales), 117 n. 

Browning- Society, the : its es- 
tablishment, 498. 

Brownlow, Lord, 439. 

Bruce, Lady Augusta, 301. 

Bruce, Lady Charlotte (wife of 
Mr. F. Locker), 22. 

Buckstone, Mr. (actor), 280. 

Buloz, M., 258. 

Burne Jones, Mr., 331, 341. 

Burns, Major (son of the poet), 
194. 

Califobnian Railway time- 
table edition of Browning's 
poems, 510 n. 

Cambo, 877. 

Cambridge, Browning's visit to, 
4.52. 

Campbell Dykes, Mr. J., 16 n , 
48, 52, 90 n., 190, 500. 

Carducci, Countess (Rome), 
197. 

Carlyle, Mr. T., 25, 117, 194, 
248-250, 397, 5.30. 

Carlyle, Mrs. T., 194; anec- 
dote, 531 n. 

Carnarvon, Lord, 439. 

Carnival masquerade, a, 309. 

Cartwright, Mr. and Mrs. (of 
Aynhoe), 329, 330, 346, 439. 

Casa Guidi (Browning's resi- 
dence at Florence), 278, 395. 

Cattermole, Mr., 121. 

Cavour, Coiint, death of, 356. 

Channel, Mr (afterwards Sir 
William), and Frank, 43 n. 

Chapman & Hall, Messrs. (pub- 
lishers), 266, .384. 

Cholmondeley, Mr. (Condover), 
439, 491, 530. 

Chorley, Mr., 231. 

Cini, Dr. (Venice), 616. 



Clairvoyance, an instance of, 
317. 

Coddington, Miss Fannie (after- 
wards Mrs. R. Barrett Brown- 
ing), 577. 

Colvin, Mr. Sidney, 326. 

Cornhill Magazine : why Herv^ 
Riel appeared in it, 188, 422. 

Corkran, Mrs. Fraser, 17, 262. 

Cornaro, Catharine, 599, 604, 
609. 

Corson, Professor, 504. 

Crosse, Mrs. Andrew, 16 n. 

Croxall's Fables, Browning's 
early fondness for, 39. 

Curtis, Mr., 482. 

Dale, Mr. factor), 128. 
Davidson, Captain (of the Nor- 

ham Castle, 1838), 137, 144. 
Davies, Rev. Llewellyn, 505. 
Debt, Browning's mock defense 

of (in the Trifler), 94, 95. 
Dickens, Charles, 118, 171, 176, 

183, 530. 
Domett, Alfred, 67, 68 ; On a 

certain Critique of Pippa 

Passes, 159. 
Dourlans, M. Gustave, 265. 
Doyle, Sir Francis H., 388, 

389. 
Dufferin, Lord, 415. 
Dulwich Gallery, 70. 

EcLETic Review, the (review 
of Browning's works), 160. 

Eden, Mr. Frederic, 481. 

Egerton-Smith, Miss, 440, 441, 
461. 

Elgin, Lady, 22, 248, 300. 

Elstree (Macready's residence), 
121, 147. 

Elton, Mr. (actor), 182. 

Engadine, the, 526, 580. 

Examiner (review of Paracel- 
sus), 110. 

Fano, 230. 

" Father Prout " (Mr. Mahoney), 
226. 



INDEX. 



643 



Faucit, Miss Helen, as Lady 
Carlisle in IStratford, K^O ; as 
Mildred in A Blot in the 
'Scutcheon, 179 ; as Colombe 
in Colombe's Birthday, 181. 
See Martin, Lady. 

Fiori, Margherita (Browning's 
nnrse), 618. 

Fisher, Mr. (artist), 280. 

Fit7g^rald, Mr. Edward, 612. 

Fitz-Gerald, Mrs., 2U1. 

Florence, 220-222, 242, 243, 
278, 292, 32.->, 394. 

Flower, Miss, 47, 51-54, 120, 
129, 194, 195. 

Flower, Mr. Benjamin (editor 
of the Cambridge Intelli- 
gencer), 53. 

Fontaineblean, 436. 

Forster, Mr. John, 86, 110, 118, 
121, 124, 125, 171, 183, 193, 
214, 384, 530. 

Fortia, Marquis de, 116. 

Fox, Miss Caroline, 156. 

Fox, Miss Sarah, 129. 

Fox, Mr. W. J., 47, 51, 53, 77- 
81,84-86, 109, 119, 120, 129, 
275 ; election for Oldham, 
277, 321. 

Furnivall, Dr., 3 n., 498-500, 
503. 

Gaisford, Mr. , and Lady Alice, 

439. 
Galuppi, Baldassaro, 520 n, 
Gibraltar, 144. 

Ginnasi, Count (Ravenna), 319. 
Giustiniani - Recanati, Palazzo 

(Venice), 478. 
Gladstone, Mr., 388. 
Glasgow, University of, 454. 
Goldoni, Browning's sonnet to, 

520. 
Goltz, M. (Austrian Minister at 

Rome), 290. 
Gosse's Personalia, 93, 157, 109, 

185. 
Green, Mr., 450. 
Gressoney, Saint-Jean, 476. 
Gu^rande (Brittany), 401. 



Guidi Palace (Casa Guidi), 228. 
Gurney, Rev. Archer, 119. 

Hanmer, Sir John (afterwards 
Lord Hanmer), 119. 

Haworth, Miss Euphrasia Fan- 
ny, 122, 1.5(). 

Haworth, Mr. Frederick, 123. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 304. 

Hazlitt, Mr., 81. 

Heyermans, M. (artist ; Ant- 
werp), 445. 

Hickey, Miss E. H., 95 n., 498. 

Hill, Mr. Frank (editor of the 
Daily News, 1884), 169-180. 

Hood, Mr. Thomas, 187., 

Home, Mr., 118. 

Hugo, Victor, 259. 

Ion, the Ion supper, 124. 

Jameson, Mrs. Anna, 214 
Jebb-Dyke, Mrs., 262. 
Jerninghani, Miss, 103. 
Jersey, 259. 

Jewsbury, Miss Geraldine, 248. 
Joachim, Professor, 452. 
Jones, Mr. Edward Burne, 341. 
Jones, Rev. Thomas, 73. 
Jowett, Dr., 292, 402, 593. 

Kean, Mr. Edmund, 73. 

Keats, 56. 

Keepsake, The, 296. 

Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, 288-291. 

Kenyon, Mr. John, 150, 151, 
200, 201, 208, 222 ; his death, 
302. 

King, Mr Joseph, 183. 

Kirkup, Mr., 316, 317, 569 n. 

Knight, Professor (St. An- 
drews), 151, 454. 

Lamartine, M. de, 258. 

Lamb, Charles, 462. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 118. 

151, 326-328, 333-335, 569 ni 
La Saisiaz. 445, 457. 
Layard, Sir Henry and Lady 

481, 484. 



644 



INDEX. 



Le Croisic (Brittany), 400. 

Leig-h Hunt, 118. 

Leighton, Mr. (afterwards Sir 

Frederic), 48, 328. 
Les Charmettes (Chamb^ry ; 

Rousseau's residence), 4b2. 
Le Strange, Mrs. Guy, 327. 
Lewis, Miss (Haipton), .504. 
Literary Gazette (review of 

Pauline), 90 n. 
Literary World, the Boston, U. 

S. (on Colombe's Birthday), 

184. 
Llang-ollen, 527. 
Llantysilio Church, 528, 589. 
Lloyd, Captain, 117. 
Locker, Mr. F. (now Mr. Lock- 

er-Lampson), 22, 300. 
Lockhart, 2b 9. 

Lucca, 230-242, 282, 311, 34G. 
Lyons, Mr. (son of Sir Edmund), 

290. 
Lytton, Mr. (now Lord), 284, 

293, 311. 

Maclise, Mr. (artist), 188, 193. 
Macready, Mr., 73, 120, 122- 

127, 130, 131, 168, 171-183. 
Macready, Willy (eldest son of 

the actor) : his illustrations 

to the Pied Piper, 189. 
Mahoney, Rev. Francis (Father 

Prout), 220. 
Manning, Rev. Dr. (afterwards 

Cardinal). 349. 
Manzoni Palace (Venice), 522- 

525. 
Mazzini. Signor, 252. 
Martin, Lady, 179, 181, 182, 

281, 527. 
Martin, Sir Theodore, 527. 
Martineau, Miss, 123, 136, 147, 

155. 
Melvill, Rev. H. (afterwards 

Canon), 25, 73. 
Meredith, Mr. George, 505. 
Mill, Mr. J. S., 84, 100, 403. 
Milnes, Mr. Monckton (after- 
wards Lord Houghton), 118, 

223, 259, 530. 



Milsand, M. Joseph, 260, 262- 

265, 417, 419,420, 426 ; death, 

529. 
Minich, Dr. (Venice), 618. 
Mitford, Miss, 125, 133, 215. 
Mocenigo, Countess (Venice), 

483. 
Mohl, Madame, 248, 301. 
Monthly Repository, 81, 89 ; 

Browning's contributions to, 

92, 109. 
Moore, Mrs. Bloomfield, 526, 

580. 
Morgan, Lady, 223. 
Morison, Mr. James Cotter. 505. 
Mortimer, Mr., 430, 431, 630. 
Moulton-Barrett, Mr. George, 

367, 545, 608. 
Moxon, Mr. (publisher), 97. 161, 

174, 266. 
Murray, Miss Alma (actress), 

184. 
Musset, Alfred and Paul de, 

258. 

Naples, 196. 

National Magazine, the : Mrs. 

Browning's portrait in (1859), 

336. 
Nencioni, Professor (Florence), 

518 
Nettleship, Mr. J. T., 500. 
New Shakspere Society, 513. 
Noel, Mr. Roden, 628. 

Ogle, Dr. John, 388. 

Ogle, Miss (author of a Lost 
Love), 379. 

Osbaldistone, Mr. (manager of 
Covent Garden Theatre, 
1830), 130. 

Ossoli, Countess Margaret Ful- 
ler, 245. 

Oxford, 401 ; Browning's visit 
to, 1877, 448. 

Paris, 247, .308. 
Palgrave, Mr. Francis, 388. 
Palgrave. Mr. Reginald, 3^:8. 
Patterson, Moiisignor, 388- 



INDEX. 



645 



Phelps, Mr. (actor), 172, 173, 

177, 2:U. 
Pirate-ship, wreck of, 140-142. 
Pisa, 217. 

Poetical contest, a Roman, 842. 
Pollock, Sir Frederick (1843), 

168. 
Pornic, 386, 395. 
Powell, Mr. Thomas, 48, 190. 
Power, Miss (editor of The 

Keepsake), 296. 
Powers, Mr. (American sculp- 
tor), 222. 
Primiero, 589. 
Prinsep, Mr. Val, 197, 316, 326, 

331, 341, 476. 
Pritchard, Captain, 117. 
Procter, Mr. Bryan Waller 

(Barry Cornwall), 118, 384, 

530, 569 n. 

QuAiRE, Madame du. 355, 359. 
Quarles' Emblemes, 45. 

Ravenna, 470. 

Ready, the two Misses, prepara- 
tory school, 35, 38, 41. 

Ready, Rev. Thomas (Brown- 
ing's first schoolmaster), 35, 
40. 

Reg-an, Miss, 417. 

Reid, Mr. Andrew, 543. 

Relfe, Mr. John (musician), 
61. 

Rezzonico Palace (Venice), the, 
11, 588. 

Ripert-Monclar, Count de, 101, 
116, 146, 546. 

Richmond, Rev. Thomas, 388, 
389. 

Robertson, Mr. John (editor of 
Westminster Review, 1838), 
135. 

Robinson, Miss Mary (now Mrs. 
James Darmesteter), 184. 

Rome, 284-290, 332-334. 

Rossetti, Mr. Dante Gabriel, 90, 
277, 278, 293; death of his 
wife, 375. 

Euskin, Mr., 294. 



Russell, Lady William, 346. 
Russell, Mr. Odo (afterwards 

Lord Ampthill), 329, 330, 

346. 

Sabatier, Madame, 417. 

Sal^ve, the, 445, 458. 

Sand, George, 219, 252-259. 

Sartoris, Mife., 288, 289, 293, 
300, 360. 

Saunders & Otley, Messrs., 77, 
98. 

Scott, Rev. Dr. (Master of Bal- 
liol, 1867), 402. 

Seotti, Mr., 197. 

Scottish Art Review, the, Mr. 
Mortimer's Note on Brown- 
ing- in, 430, 431. 

Seravezza, 238. 

Sharp, Mr., 55, 298, 562, 627- 
630,633. 

Shelley, 55, 56-60, 88, 89; 
Browning's Essay on, 268- 
275 ; his grave, 286. 

Shrewsbury, Lord, 439. 

Sidgwiek, Mr. A., 504. 

Siena, 350, 419. 

Silverthorne, Mrs., 69. 

Simeon, Sir John, 358. 

Smith, Miss (second wife of the 
poet's grandfather), 6. 

Smith, Mr. George Murray, 406. 

Southey, 151. 

Spezzia, 237. 

Spiritualism, 312-316 ; a pre- 
tending medium, 316. 

Spliigen, 468. 

St. Andrew's University, 403. 

St.-Aubin (M. Milsao'd's resi- 
dence), 417, 418, 420, 434. 

St.-Enogat (near Dinard), 372. 

St.-Pierre la Chartreuse, 476, 
477 ; a tragic occurrence 
there, 486. 

Stanley, Dean, 530. 

Stanley, Lady Augusta, 530. 

Stendhal, Henri, 198, 219. 

Sterling, Mr. Jolm, 156. 

Stirling. Mrs. (actre.ss), 179. 

Story, Mr- and Mrs. William, 



646 



INDEX. 



70, 282, 283, 285, 286, 327, 

331, 345, 416, 483. 
Sturtevant, Miss, 52. 
Sue, Eugene, 219. 

Tablets, Memorial, 529, 623. 

Tait's Magazine, 84. 

Talfourd, Serjeant, 118, 119, 
124, 163. 

Taylor, Sir Henry, 426. 

Tennyson, Mr. A. (afterwards 
Lord Tennyson), 294, 388. 

Tennyson, Mr. Frederick, 293. 

Thackeray, Miss Annie, 298. 

Thackeray, Mr. W. M., 288, 
530. 

Thaxter, Mrs. Celia (Boston, 
U. S.), 510. 

Thaxter, Mr. Levi, 510-512. 

Thomson, Mr. James : his ap- 
plication of the term ' ' Goth- 
ic " to Browning's work, 155 
n. 

Tittle, Miss Margaret, 5. 

Trelawney, Mr. E. J. (1844), 
197. 

Trifler, The (amateur maga- 
zine), 93, 94. 

True Sun, the (review of Straf- 
ford), 128. 



Universo, Hotel dell' (Venice), 

473. 

Valt.ombrosa, 220. 

Venice, 146, 243, 244, 473-476, 

592, 613. 
Vigna, Dr. da (Venice), 618. 

Wagner, 484. 
Waiburton, Mr. Eliot, 118. 
Watts, Dr., 41 n. 
Westminster, Dean of, 620, 

624. 
Widman, Contesp;i, 12. 
Wiedemann, Mr. William, 26. 
Williams, Rev. .J. D. W. (vicar 

of Bottisham, Cambs.), 545. 
Wilson (Mrs. Browning's maid), 

221, 237, 240, 242, 244, 328 n., 

333. 
Wilson, Mr. Effingham (pub- 
lisher), 101. 
Wiseman, Mrs. (mother of 

Cardinal Wiseman), 2C0. 
Wolseley, Lady, 492. 
Wolseley, Lord, 527. 
Woolner, Mr.,388. 
Wordsworth, 118, 151, 191. 
Wordsworth Society, the, 513, 

567. 






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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2009 

PreservatlonTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 












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